Gluing up 1/8" Jatoba onto 1/2" to make stair risers?

[Kevin Murdock]

Hey All,

I'm currently in the process of making jatoba treads to and my wife just mentioned that she'd prefer matching risers over white painted ones.

So I'm thinking about making risers out of 1/8" resawn jatoba glued onto 1/2" plywood. So the risers would be 5/8", just an eight under the standard 3/4" riser.

My question is would this cause any problems? I always hear that you need a backing veneer, but 1/8" is pretty thick.

So thinking about it, I guess that my options are:
1) Glue up 1/8" Jatoba onto 1/2" plywood
2) Glue up 1/8" Jatoba onto 1/2" plywood with 1/8" hardwood on back
3) Glue up 1/8" Jatoba onto 3/4" plywood

Option 2 would just take a bit more time to resaw and prep some maple for the backside.

What are others experiences? And which would be best for risers?

Thanks in advance,
-Kevin

[Peter Quinn]

We are doing a lot of "engineered" material right now in the shop which involves a 3/16" veneer glued to BB that measures around .600". No backer veneer, just a face veneer. IME it doesn't stay flat, it suffers some cupping and a far bit of bowing. In the application at work the material is used as flooring that gets glued down, so it is held flat to a solid substrate, and it works. Its not technically correct, but it works fine. Over 36"-48" like your average riser it might be fine to do a single layer.

We have done bubinga, walnut, wenge, white oak with similar results on each. I'd be curious to try using 1/8" HDF or masonite as a backer to see if that keeps things flat. I've seen some commercial laminate flooring made like that and it was dead flat over 55".