Types of Veneer
Flat Cut Veneers:
This is the most common method of veneer manufacturing and produces both crowns and quarters. Where quartered veneers are sorted and sold separately, this veneer is sold as crown cut veneer, which exhibits a grain pattern known as cathedral. Because each leaf in the flitch is similar, a consistent and even matching pattern is possible.
Quarter Cut Veneers:
Also called quartered veneers, these are produced by cutting the log into quarters and then slicing in a direction tangential (perpendicular) to the growth rings, i.e. towards the centre of the log. This cut requires the largest diameter logs and produces straight grained veneers. The quarter slicing of oak can result in the appearance of flake.
Rotary Cut Veneers:
Rotary cut veneers (or peeled veneers) are produced by turning the log in a circular motion against a knife peeling off a continuous thin sheet of wood veneer. This is the most economical method of producing veneer and is regularly used for veneers that will be used in the production of plywood, especially the core. The grain is inconsistent and leaves can be difficult to match, although full panel widths are possible with this form of production.
Special Cuts and Forms of Veneer
Rift Cut Veneers:
Produced by cutting at a slight angle to the radial to produce a quartered appearance without excessive ray flake, rift cutting is a common way to produce clean 'quartered' oak. This form of cutting can only be used on sizable logs and rift cut veneers can easily be sequenced and matched.
Staylog Veneers:
These are produced by locking the log into the machine arm which rotates offcentre to the core of the log. This form of veneer production offers a crown cut effect, except the veneers are larger than the diameter of the log itself, due to the path the blade takes through the log. Many large width so-called 'crown cut veneers' are actually produced by the staylog method
Burr Veneers:
Burr veneers are formed by abnormal growth, or excrescences, which are common to
most trees. Irritation or injury forms an interwoven, contorted, or gnarly mass
of dense woody tissue from which this veneer is harvested.
These veneers are produced by rotary cutting or peeling the log
Specialty Veneers:
An example of this would be Birds Eye Maple, whose figure is due to small conical
depressions in the outer annual rings of the Maple tree, so that the latter growth
follows the same contour probably for many years. This distortion of the fibre alignments
appears on rotary cut and plain cut veneer as a series of small concentric circles
like a Birds Eye.
There are several doubtful explanations for the cause of the grain disturbance and
embryo bugs, birds in search of sap, insects and fungi retarding growth in small
localised areas are all claimed by different authorities to be the cause.
