A bit of Veneering

In the last couple of days I’ve veneered up some plywood for the carcass back and the horizontal cubby hole dividers. I prefer to use solid timber where possible, but am not blind to the advantages of sheet materials when necessary. Still, I always use plywood rather than MDF for several reasons – MDF is poisonous, it’s too flat so even when veneered can look “dead” - and it doesn’t sound right when you tap it!

In this project budgetary considerations indicated a plywood back panel – although a very handsome one laminated with quartered oak constructional veneer. I used off cuts for the cubby hole dividers for reasons of strength – they’re quite thin and the dadoes are quite tight. Naturally they will have mouldings on the front edge.

Below is a picture of work to date. The holes in the back panel are for ventilation (this area will house a PC) and for a mains cable <sigh>.  I'm not against computers (hence this website!), and they seem to be a modern necessity - this bureaux was designed around the need to house a PC, but still, the luddite in me hates cutting holes in nice pieces of furniture to accommodate them!