Cutting veneer easier

Using a shooting plane to cut veneer

The cost of quality wood has driven me to use veneer for many of my projects. Veneer has a bad reputation of being inferior to solid wood. When veneer is glued to MDF or cabinet grade plywood, it has none of the warpage and expansion/contraction of solid wood. Buying veneer online is an easier prospect than getting high quality solid wood from your local lumber distributor.

This post is about a reliable way of cutting a straight edge on veneer. Strips typically need to be positioned side by side and glued to form a wide board. The challenge is cutting straight edges on each side of a veneer strip. Typical approaches involve running a plane along the edge or passing the strip through a joiner. Both of these approaches can cause the veneer to tear out due to changes in the grain direction. I've wasted many strips of veneer trying to get the perfect edge.

Cutting from the side of the veneer causes the tear out. What I do is run the veneer on a sled through the table saw. When the veneer is supported against vertical movement, the table saw blade will cleanly cut the veneer, independent of grain direction. This sled is about 1 foot wide and is made of ¼" double sided melamine. To hold the veneer strip, short pieces of double sided adhesive tape are used.

A cross cut blade gives the best results. The blade I use has 80 teeth. Raise the blade until the entire tooth just clears the sled. The table saw fence should be moved to keep the edge of the sled barely touching the blade. No gap reduces the chance of tearing the veneer.

Position the veneer where you want the cut to occur. Use another scrape piece the length of the sled to keep the veneer flat on the sled. Run it through the fence and detach from the fence. Sometimes I use a putty knife to help pull the veneer from the tape. I've tried cutting more than one veneer strip at the same time with limited success. One at a time is more reliable. Now you have a techique for taking advantage of the economy and high quality of veneer in your projects.