Rotary Cut Walnut Veneer

[James Dempsey]

I have an architect rejecting my shop drawing using plain sliced walnut, has anyone heard of or seen rotary cut walnut veneer?

Thanks
James

[Richard Coers]

Are you asking about raw veneer, or plywood? Why are you specifying the veneer? What did the architect originally specify?

[James Dempsey]

Raw veneer, unless you have a source for walnut bonded door skins.
Architect has specified rotary cut walnut

[Jim Becker]

Given the nature of walnut, that's going to be a tougher row to hoe, I suspect, and yea, at a minimum, it's likely going to require laying it up custom from raw veneer once it's found. Specifying rotary cut (which is most often on the "cheap stuff" is a weird thing to me for a premium wood species!

[Warren Lake]

check with cut to size places, also some lumber companies one i used to deal with sold flitches of veneer. If they dont have it they will point you in the direction.. Never seen rotary walnut and rotary other stuff ive seen is ugly.

[James Dempsey]

check with cut to size places, also some lumber companies one i used to deal with sold flitches of veneer. If they dont have it they will point you in the direction.. Never seen rotary walnut and rotary other stuff ive seen is ugly.

I priced the project using plain sliced, and can get quartered if needed, I was interested to see if rotary was available from any commercial source.

[Frank Pratt]

I wonder if the architect really knows what he wants. I've never seen rotary cut walnut veneer, probably because that would be a horrendous waste of fine wood. There's lots of rotary cut red oak out there & it's just about the ugliest stuff there is.

[Mike Henderson]

I never heard of rotary cut walnut. There are a few fine wood species that are rotary cut, such as birds eye maple, but not many.

Mike

[Mel Fulks]

Strange stuff. I'm guessing he means flat sawn ,with few straight lines. And I would not proceed without having him
pick a pic of what he wants. You might even want to have a "minimum flashy " pic and a maximum "flashy pic".
I won't say he's a nut ,but I've dealt with a bunch them.

[Erik Loza]

I wonder if the architect really knows what he wants... This ^^^^ I worked as an A&D product rep for about a year and a common scenario would be that the architect or designer shows some single sample to a client. Neither the client nor the designer really knows what that is other than "it's pretty". There were many times were a builder would contact us and have some off the wall request from the client, which required "backwards explaining" to try and get an understanding of what and why they chose it. Just my thoughts,

Erik

[Bill Dufour]

He probably thinks rotary cut is the cheapest walnut veneer he can get. Give him prices for flat sawn, solid and rotary cut. For most woods rotary cut is the cheapest veneer so he probably thinks he is saving money. Why would he want rotary cut anyway? Do some people prefer the look?
Bil lD

[Mel Fulks]

I don't think you can inform an architect in the same way you inform a client. But some that are pretty imperious get
a lot more collegial when they have proclaimed themselves into a jam!

[roger wiegand]

It's not very imaginable why you would want it, but someplace like Certainly Wood can tell you if it can be had. If it needs to be custom cut the price will probably get someone's attention.

[Frank Pratt]

I don't think you can inform an architect in the same way you inform a client. But some that are pretty imperious get
a lot more collegial when they have proclaimed themselves into a jam!

I work with architects a fair bit, and most are quite good, but yes Mel, I've met a few that are just like you describe.

[Richard Coers]

If you want skins, I used Indiana Architectural Plywood with wonderful results on a conference table top. They have ready access to all kinds of veneer. I'd certainly ask for a veneer sample or virtual sample with the architects signed approval before purchasing anything.

[Stewart Lang]

Just send him the link to this thread. I think he'll have a better understanding then :)

[J.R. Rutter]

Make sure he doesn't mean rift cut. That is the trend here for the past couple of years for walnut, cherry, and white oak. "Let's mimic the look of textured laminate using real wood," seems to be the thinking...

[Alan Lightstone]

I don't think you can inform an architect in the same way you inform a client. But some that are pretty imperious get
a lot more collegial when they have proclaimed themselves into a jam!

I informed mine with a pink slip. Best decision we made on our project.

[Rich Aldrich]

That is a bit different We don't have good access or markets for rotary pealed walnut veneer.

We rotary peal about 13 million square feet of maple and birch per month. With the log sizes these days, that amounts to 300 logs per day. The good stuff is book matched and spliced into full sheets. Its nice when we get into some curly and Birdseye. We get all grades from the logs. Everything from A sheets to #4 backs. Most of it is used for hardwood plywood skins. Some is used in making drums and more specialty high end office furniture.

We also cut 70,000 bdft per day - hardwood lumber. Back in the day, Birdseye was considered 3B lumber, the lowest grade. In the UP of Michigan you can still find old hardwood floors with Birdseye. Now it is a specialty and is the highest priced lumber we sell. My favorite is maple with bark pocket. The common species we cut are hard maple, soft maple, cherry, beech, birch, ash and oak.

The amazing thing is we don't slice, but it really take a big investment to get into it. Its always the scare of getting into a new market. Sliced is where the booked sheets look incredible.

We do sort logs for the sliced market and sell those logs to the sliced manufacturers.