Balancing Thick Veneers

[Glen Johnson]

I am making a trestle table with tiger maple. When I look at the boards that will be the top of the table, I can't find an arrangement that I like. I do have one 5/4 thick, ten inch wide board, that I think has great figure. I am thinking of ripping this board into two five inch wide boards and thin slicing three 1/4 inch veneers from each of the five inch boards. I would then glue these boards onto a one inch thick maple board substrate. This would give the top a uniform and book matched appearance. My question is, do I need to put a 1/4 inch veneer on the bottom of the substrate to match the 1/4 inch figured veneer on the top? I know you need to do this for thinner veneers to keep the wood from warping. Does one need to do this for thicker veneers? The maple substrate boards are plain sawn maple. Opinions and advice would be appreciated.

[Robert LaPlaca]

1/4" is one awfully thick veneer, IMO. I have successfully used 1/8" shop sawn veneer over a solid wood substrate, the veneer was balanced on both sides of the substrate, not necessarily using the same highly figured veneer.

Why do you want to rip a wide figured board, into two 5 inch boards?

[Shawn Pixley]

I can't say conclusively that you need to balance exactly. But if it were my piece, I would balance the bottom with an equivelant thickness.

I would actually make 1/8" veneers and laminate it to a maple substrate and add an 1/8" backing veneer. If you are making veneers from nice wood, I'd try to maximize the yield (more wood for other projects).

[Judson Green]

I'll echo what the guys above said bout making ⅛" veneer.

I've thought balancing was always necessary but on a antique dresser that I have the drawer fronts, some of the them pretty wide or deep depending how you look at it, aren't veneered on the back and so I duplicated that process for a set of drawers on a kitchen table, however they are kind of like pencil drawers, so warping might not have been an issue anyway.

IIRC, Roy Underhill had an episode about veneering and there was no veneering on the backside of that work. Perhaps it has something to do with the process you use for gluing the veneer, IDK.

Try a test piece, I think if is gonna warp it'll do it relatively quickly, like a few days after, again IDK.

Good luck and report back please.

[Glen Johnson]

Thanks for the replies. Better safe than sorry. I will do both sides.