Duncan Phyfe Table - Question on Wood Expansion

[Matt Palloy]

I was at a Duncan Phyfe furniture exhibit and have a question about his work. If you look at the picture of the table (attached), you'll see that there is veneer all around the edges of the table, and in sections around the top. How come this veneer around the edges did not split apart given the natural expansion of the table top? Was there plywood back then? (e.g. 1850). I put edging around a solid piece of maple once, and of course it soon came apart at the seams because of the wood's expansion. Any ideas? This is bugging me. Thanks.

[Jerome Hanby]

I have no clue about the particulars of this piece or his other work, but they could have built their own plywood out of veneers, just run each layer at right angles to the adjacent ones. Smooth layers of glue and some method of clamping the pile tightly should yield something at least as good as modern plywood as far as stability goes, probably much better in terms of voids and ability to hold fasteners.

[Steve Jenkins]

I can't see the pic( or any other that is loaded onto SMC) but it is a safe bet that the table top is veneered. Yes they did have plywood back then, in fact they had plywood and used veneers in ancient Egypt.

[Jim Galvin]

He might have used quartersawn wood for the top essentially making a sheet of solid core plywood, veneer on top, the core and veneer on the bottom, using quartersawn wood for the core would minimize the wood movement. The apron could have been brick laid or made of multiple pieces sawn out of solids. The apron looks like three pieces of veneer.

[Jim Matthews]

+1 on the veneer top and bottom. This should be quite stable. I would not be surprised to find a few "expansion joints" in the veneer, hidden from view.

It also bears mentioning that a piece like this has a conservator looking after it - rather than catching keys and today's mail next to the front door.

jim
wpt, ma