Oyster and plum pudding may possibly audio like classes of a typical English dinner, but they are also descriptive terms of wooden veneer designs. It seems only fitting since a lot English home furniture relies intensely on the lovely graining attained by the use of veneers. Although the French household furniture sported elaborate ormolu mounts, the more reserved English cabinetmakers made the most of scale, proportion and the elaborate graining of veneers.

Veneers are skinny slices of wooden glued onto a household furniture carcass produced of a more affordable and sturdier wooden. Employing a abundant local wood the place it wouldn’t be seen permits the very best use of more expensive figured wood on the exterior where it displays.

Usually, veneers had been hand minimize, restricting the thickness to about one/8″ thick. With the arrival of the industrial revolution, machine reduce veneers could become thinner, 1/sixteen” to one/32″, resulting in much more sheets of veneer for every tree. To help date a piece of veneered home furniture, analyze the thickness of the veneer by opening a drawer and searching where the veneer fulfills the carcass on the back of the drawer front.

The beauty of veneer graining relies upon on two factors, 1st, exactly where the veneer is cut from the tree and second, how it is utilized to the carcass. For example, Crotch veneer is lower from the fork of a tree trunk or the place a big branch joins the trunk. The grain typically appears as a sample resembling a V-form or a cluster of plumes, when seen in mahogany it could be referred to as flame grain mahogany or crotch mahogany, in walnut it is crotch walnut. Burl (or as the English say Burr) veneer is taken from a wart-like, abnormal progress on a tree exactly where the fibers are not directional. The effect is a small, rounded, extremely grained sample and is most frequently witnessed in walnut. Plum Pudding Mahogany has a very contrasted grain of elongated styles reminiscent of plums. Bird’s Eye maple comes from a deformity in the tree, a lot like burl walnut, but alternatively of a expansion on the outdoors of the tree, it is caused by indentions into the development rings. When the veneers are reduce, the dents type numerous tiny round designs. Oyster veneer is found most typically in walnut, from time to time in yew, and are “slices” taken crosswise from the limb of a tree. Resembling oyster shells, the modest pieces are fitted collectively with extraordinary intricacy to totally protect the carcass. This method was perfected in the course of the reign of William and Mary in the late seventeenth century.

Marquetry is yet another method perfected throughout this time period, using veneers of different woods. Parquetry is the identical process making use of geometric designs. The English also understood by deliberately slicing off the tops of oak trees, the trunk fibers grew denser creating a swirling grain comparable to burl, this veneer is known as pollard oak.

Veneers can be applied to a carcass in a variety of methods. press in veneers might type diverse designs dependent on where the veneer is cut from the tree, but consecutively minimize veneers will have practically similar grain designs. If the slices are utilized still left edge of one particular to the appropriate edge of the other, they are slip-matched. veneers, like fanning a deck of playing cards. When utilized left edge to still left edge, they are ebook-matched veneer, like opening a guide.

Diamond styles, which are typically seen on the sides or tops of chests, can be formed with straight reduce veneers by matching aspect-to-facet, and prime to bottom in a quadrant result. Where the base of 1 veneer meets the leading of another is referred to as a butt match.

An additional sign of a fantastic chest is how the drawer fronts are veneered. If e-book matched, it is essential to be aware if the grain also flows from the very first drawer to the last in a ongoing movement.

For all the attractiveness of veneered furniture, one ought to know it might just take more upkeep. As Jim Horne of HKH, Inc., a restorer of fantastic antiques, notes, “Most people maintain their houses too dry. With the drastic humidity changes in this metropolis, the core lumber (carcass) expands and agreement at a various fee than the veneer causing the veneer to pop or appear free”. 1 way this can be rectified is installing a humidifier.