veneer thickness for chest lid?

[eugene thomas]

I am making three toy chest for customer. one out of cherry and two out of walnut. the body is out of solid wood but do to the lid of chest design going to glue veneer onto plywood. going to glue wood onto each side of plywood. wondering how thick can make the wood without having to worry about the wood cracking from exspantion. the lid size is 20 x 38 with 2 inch solid wood boarder all way around.

[Mike Henderson]

I've glued veneer to a solid wood substrate without problems. I put the grain of the veneer in the same direction as the grain of the substrate.

For extra insurance, you can put a cross grain veneer under your fancy veneer. Just pick a veneer that's the same color as the fancy veneer so that if the edge is exposed you don't see a line of a different color.

Mike

[Don Kondra]

Commercial veneer is ~ 1/32", I wouldn't recommend going thicker than 3/32" for shop cut veneer.

Cheers, Don

[John TenEyck]

I do a fair amount of veneering with shop sawn veneer. I usually saw it at 0.100" and drum sand it to 0.060 - 0.070" (1/16"). At that thickness you can joint the edges like real wood which makes it easy, at least for me, to cover a panel, and it's thin enough not to cause any expansion/contraction problems with the substrate. I usually use MDF or BB plywood as a substrate, but I've used solid wood too. With solid wood, run the veneer in the same direction as the grain, as stated above. Plastic Resin glue or Cold Press veneer glue are the two I use the most gluing down the veneer in a vacuum bag.

John