I am spawning this question from the double bookmatch help thread; didn't want to hijack the original. More than anything else, I am curious about the bookmatching process that kwgeorge is showing in his first reply. I know that when you slice a board in half and open it, you'll have bookmatched halves. When one buys veneer, how do you get the bookmatched piece as shown in the attached pictures?
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Ok, I will have a go at this but I will probably give too much information. For the sake of this discussion let’s assume we have a single board of 2”X2” that we have sliced into 4 even sections. We then drilled a 1/4” hole towards the lower right corner and numbered each piece in sequence from 1 to 4.
Now, Bookmatching like it implies is the act of opening a book and looking at two opposing pages. So if we grab the first two pieces of our wood and flip them we have produced a mirror image of what we were originally looking at. Pieces 1 and 4 are under pieces 3 and 2.
The next thing we do is to create what is called a 4 way match which is also a form of bookmatching. To accomplish this we flip both 3 and 2 over and we are left with this.
Now the thing to understand here is that this sequence matching would have worked for any corner of this wood therefore we have 4 possible 4 way matches. As long as we perform this sequencing referencing off the same corner that we chose. This sequencing will work very well for rather plain veneer but not so good with highly figured veneer and especially a heavy quilted veneer because the joints of the pieces are far apart enough where the grain wont match very well. In this example section 4 is joined directly with section 1 and with them being cut the farthest away from each other you have the potential of a poor grain match. To help keep this to a minimum you can sequence the pieces so they are not so far apart and this will give a better grain match. As an example;
Well I am at it let me talk a bit more about veneer cutting. When you are cutting veneer it is ok to use a knife on edges that will not be joined together but never use a knife to cut the veneer where it will be joined. Why? When you cut with a knife by its design is will compress wood fibers and sever them creating an edge that is Vee’ed. Now this is very problematic when you glue the veneer to the substrate as the joint line is very thin and will “Burn Through” while sanding and it does not take much! What you end up with is a very visible glue line right in the middle of your piece. Sawing or trim routing will flush the edges square and give you the best glue line.
I hope that helps some and always number your veneer pages before you do anything else! -
Ya know, looking back I am not real sure I answered your question. When you buy veneer it is normally in a bundle and sequenced matched. That means they were consultatively cut from the same board. For example most of the Burls I have bought were in 4 to 8 sheet bundles while the not so figured veneers I have purchased had 16 plus sheets per bundle.Comment
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Since I have never purchased bundled veneer, I had no idea that's how it is packaged. I also enjoyed reading your first reply.Originally posted by kwgeorgeComment
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George is spot on, usually the veneer is sequenced. So you get consecutive slices of veneer for use in veneering, be it slip or book, or quarter matched. I've gotten waterfall bubinga in a 15 sheet flitch (correct use of term?), and curly birdseye in a 10 or so. All of the burls that I've bought have been 4-8, just as George's have been.
I'm sure that this varies by supplier, but the burls are sometimes shipped setup for a quarter matched application, though the edges are far from useful.Keith Z. Leonard
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