CHAPTER IV 

 VENEERS 



GENERAL 



Veneers are thin slices or sheets of wood. They were at first only 

 made from beautifully grained and handsomely figured woods which, 

 owing to their extreme cost, were seldom used in the form of solid boards. 



The veneer industry has increased in importance in great strides 

 within the past quarter of a century. It is generally considered a phase 

 of 19th-century industrialism, but historically veneers were used even 

 in early Roman times. Pliny, the younger, records how the Romans 

 went to Greece to buy great tables with veneered tops in the manufacture 

 of which the Grecians had attained great proficiency. It is said that the 

 wealth)' Romans paid very high prices for these tables faced with veneer 

 of rare Eastern and tropical woods. PHny does not record how these 

 veneers were made or what species were used and the industry was 

 practically a lost art until the early part of the last century. 



The principal reason why veneers have not come into more common 

 use until the last twenty to thirty years is the great wealth and com- 

 parative cheapness of native species, including an excellent selection of 

 cabinet woods. With the gradual depletion of our timber supply, espe- 

 cially of the more valuable woods, it is a natural consequence that 

 much of our high-grade furniture, interior finish, doors, etc., should be 

 made with the veneer face, and the centers or cores composed of mediocre 

 woods or low-grade stock. This situation, of course, contributes to the 

 more efficient utihzation of our timber supplies, since the best woods or 

 best quality of our more valuable woods can be reserved for the exterior 

 faces and the interiors made up of the cheaper woods and lower grades. 



Until comparatively recent years veneers found their principal 

 use for fine furniture and cabinet work. Within the past decade the 

 demands for veneers have increased remarkably and most of our veneers 

 are not used now for strictly veneer purposes in the original sense, but are 

 utilized for a great variety of comparatively new uses, such, for example, 



