How to know what veneer is on your radio or TV cabinet.

Perhaps you have a Radio or TV Cabinet and you wish to Restore the Timber or you may just like to know what Veneer it is?
If you don't have much experience in Furniture Restoration than identifying the veneer that is on there is not an easy task.

What you may not know is that all us guys in the furniture Restoration industry get a free Veneer sample book every year to identify the veneers we need to buy.
Now any ply wood and veneer shop like mister Ply wood has a few of these books under the counter and if you need to identify a veneer for a job your doing at home , mostly you can leave a deposit on the book and take it home to identify the Veneer on the project your about to start.
Here is a photo of my sample book to give you some idea of what its like.Plus some other photos to use as identification.


THINGS YOU WILL NEED TO KNOW.
The pattern of the Grain on your Radio Cabinet is determined by the way it was cut and milled
Eg, if its Oak and it was cut Rotary then it looks nothing like Oak cut cut down the center which call Crown cut.
So you need to keep this in mind when buying or identifying veneers.
This following table ive made may help you know what cut you have on your Radio or TV Cabinet.

THE QUARTER TRUE CUT VENEER.
The Grain on this cut veneer is fairly straight ,the lines will be parallel .very common on the top of cabinet and often the lines can run the length of the cabinet.
Mostly always used on the top of Radiograms and TVs.



THE QUARTER CUT FALSE VENEER.
This cut the grain patterns are mostly straight lines ,but it will often have a swing or a wave in the pattern .



THE CROWN CUT VENEER
very common this one and the grain lines resemble leaves or a primitive digging tool.
They start off narrow in the center and get wider and wider as the branch out and they look a bit like Stalactites in shape.



THE ROTARY CUT VENEER.
Figured, Swirls, no straight lines , just figures and swirls.


Well there you go , I hope this may help with your next Restoration Job and if Spelt anything wrong I must of been sick that day and missed school 😆 and if I missed something technical, than I must of been sick that day too and missed that day at work

Pete

Great stuff Pete, as I know nothing about wood, except you can knock nails through it, anything you write about cabinet work is gold.
Just a simple walk through like the above stuff is an eye opener to a volt jockey like me.
Give us some more very basic stuff like that maybe going through the resto of a cabinet.
Fred.

G Day Fred,
Yeah we can do that on site here if people are interested in finishing techniques .
Thanks Fred and glad to see you up and about again.
Peter

Very interesting. I also would appreciate further lessons on cabinet restoration as well.

Hello Clive,
Good to see you here .Ive had a few people that have asked for more cabinet Restoring techniques and finishing steps and some of what I have written is in other columns in this forum, so its a bit all over the place and maybe hard for people to find ,but many people are interested in knowing more so I thought it might be fun if we restore a cabinet together here from start to finish with all the steps involved .Im here at home restoring radiograms and TVs most days so now is probably a good time to put a project and steps on forum and have some fun.
Pete

Yes, Pete a step by step starting off with a dirty tattered cabinet ,covering cleaning it up, stabilising the wood, restoring any faults and final 'polish' would be the go.
Fred.

This is going to be good. Looking forward to the restore.

This is the kind of thing I print out and keep in a file for easy reference.

Hi Fred and Clive.
Yeah should be fun and I have no shortage of Cabnets needing to be done . I've got them piled up right through the house. Place looks like Steptoe and Sons!
Pete