Don Stephan
Posts: 825
Joined: 2003-07-18
Location: Cincinnati, Ohio
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A customer has requested a proposal to make two additional leaves for her dining table. My finisher is guessing the table was made around 1960-1980.
The bottom and sides appears to be South American flat sliced mahogany veneer (there is a heavy dark glaze making wood identification more difficult). The top is primarily flat sliced SA mahogany with a black 3/32" wide band and 1 1/2" quarter sliced veneer, probably satinwood (again, heavy dark glazing) at the ends. The veneer on the ends is quarter sliced veneer (likely satinwood) run vertically. The proposal will discuss in detail the difficulty of finishing new leaves that will resemble the existing closely enough to use the table without a tablecloth, even if the existing top and leaves are stripped.
The end veneers are showing very straight vertical cracks similarly spaced on both ends, suggesting to me that the core is strips of solid wood glued together. But the veneer on the ends seems very tight. The top and bottom aren't showing any cracks or even telegraphing of glue joints, so perhaps the top and bottom are two ply. Surprising to me, there are no chips in the veneer edges of the leaf I was loaned.
For the proposal for two additional leaves, I could use baltic birch plywood for the core, but it's not known how closely the thickness of a new leaf, with single or double ply on each side, would mate with the 1 1/8" thickness of the existing leaf. Alternatively of course I could make a core of strips of quartersawn cherry, the most stable quartersawn species dependably available to me.
If there are any red flags in the above, please let me know.
My question is how to veneer the ends of the core, whether baltic birch plywood or cherry end grain, and the best adhesive. It would seem one could apply a cross grain two ply to the ends of either core, but I can't recall ever reading of this. The end grain of solid wood doesn't make a good glue joint, the edge of baltic birch plywood would be better but I wonder if the plies would telegraph through a single layer of veneer.
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