January 25, 1917 



Hardwood Record — Veneer & Panel Section 



33 



Crossbanding 



Too Great Reduction in Thickness to Save Expense 

 Will Often Destroy Its Qualities of Usefulness 



ROSSBANDING UNDER FACE VENEER is 



something that was taken to unwillingly in the 



beginning and for that reason perhaps, and the 



fact that after recognizing it as a necessity the 



trade sought to minimize the cost in every way possible, 



there has developed a practice all too common of using 



crossbanding that is too thin for satisfactory results. 



It is not unusual to hear of crossbanding being used 

 that is as thin as 1 28, and stock as thin as I '20 is quite 

 common. On the other hand, there are many who have 

 made a study of the subject that argue logically for cross- 

 banding not thinner than 1/16 and the range of thickness 

 preferred from 1/16 to 1/8. 



To understand this crossbanding proposition thor- 

 oughly one must go back a little into the history of it. 

 Its most extensive use in the early days of fine veneering 

 in this country was the making of piano cases. The piano 

 people are noted for using fine veneer and for doing 

 what is perhaps the highest oder of cabinet work. Com- 

 petition in this business as in other lines led to many 

 efforts toward economy, and among them there was 

 wrestling with the question of crossbanding. The piano 

 case people sought to reduce the cost of their work by 

 eliminating the crossbanding under their face veneer, 

 but after trying it out thoroughly they were finally con- 

 vinced that the high order of work required in piano 

 veneering could only be obtained by the use of a cross- 

 banding of veneer underneath with a thin outer facing 

 of fine veneer. When the fine veneer was glued directly 

 on the heavy body the result was too often unsatisfac- 

 tory. There w^ould be checks and a marring of the 

 beauty of the finished face and the only way to safe- 

 guard this when using thin face veneer was to put a 

 sheet or layer of some plain veneer, preferably running 

 crosswise of the direction of the face veneer, on the 

 heavy core body and then after carefully finishing this 

 off to lay the fine thin face veneer over it. It was the 

 running of this under sheet crosswise of the face veneer 

 that developed the name of crossbanding. 



In the earlier days of the more extensive use of veneer 

 in furniture when it entered mainly in three-ply panels 

 crossbanding was not considered much of a factor in 

 furniture veneering. The three-ply panels were usually 

 made up of face, back and center and quite commonly the 

 face veneer was comparatively heavy, often as thick 

 as the back, with the center perhaps the same thickness 

 or somewhat thicker than the face or back but the thick- 

 ness seldom exceeding the combined thickness of the 

 face and back. 



About the time the three-ply panel was making a 

 large place for itself in the furniture world there was also 

 extensive development in veneering mantels, dresser tops 

 and many flat parts with a comparatively heavy body, 

 and quite commonly the face veneer was glued right on to 

 the heavier body, which was usually made up on an inch 

 board or several inch boards jointed together. This did 

 fairly well while the face veneer remained thick and 

 before the present day high order of finish was developed 

 but with the developing of a better order of finish and the 

 use along with it of thin face veneer it became necessary 

 to secure the best, kind of a job for furniture people to 

 take up with crossbanding. 



Crossbanding was never a welcome idea to the fur- 

 niture trade any more than to the piano trade, and there 

 was a natural seeking to reduce the cost of it to the 

 lowest possible minimum. At the same time veneer man- 

 ufacturers showed an inclination to reduce the thickness 

 of crossbanding stock. For one thing it enabled them 

 to get more surface feet of veneer from a thousand feet 

 of logs and it also gave them a better chance to realize 

 a profit and at the same time market this thin product 

 at a price lower than would be called for by thicker 

 stock. 



It is impossible to separate the many elements enter- 

 ing into this work which have been contributing factors 

 in reducing the thickness of crossbanding so that we may 

 understand what is mainly responsible. We can recog- 

 nize only in a general way that there are certain factors 

 which have led to a steady and gradual reduction in 

 thickness in crossbanding. Then we have before us, and 

 more important, the conspicuous fact that crossbanding 

 has been reduced in thickness to the poinit where it often 

 fails in its mission and the results are unsatisfactory. 



A recent instance of this was in the complaint of a 

 veneer user that all the joints in his center or core body 

 Showed through the face veneer notwithstanding that his 

 work had been crossbanded. It seems that his center 

 was made up of rather thick narrow pieces of veneer. 

 TTiere may have been some carelessness or deficiency in 

 jointing these but the main trouble came from the fact 

 that he used crossbanding only 1 /28 inch thick and face 

 veneer of the same thickness, and when it was all finished 

 off the face showed waves or lines fallowing the joints 

 in the center or core body. 



Had this man used crossbanding somewhere between 

 1/16 and 1/8 thick his face veneer would have re- 

 mained flat and true even though there might have been 



