Contrary to popular belief, quality desks and tables were never actually made from solid wood, even back in the early 1900’s. Most cabinet makers preferred option would have been to use thin slices of wood, which was then applied to a stable substrate, usually ply or laminated  wood

The main reasons for this is that solid wood is not a reliable material to work with. Its moisture levels change with the seasons and environment, which results in the wood warping or splitting.

By veneering both sides of a board with the same material, warping caused by shrinkage on one side would be counteracted by the tightening sheet on the other. In the same way the laminated or plywood substrate would be cross laminated so that each sheet prevented its neighbour from splitting.

Veneering has been in existence for over 4,000 years, although it was only in the early 1900’s that machines were invented to slice veneers incredibly thinly, rather than to saw them into relatively thick sheets before then.

The older, thicker veneer would have had the same advantages of solid wood, but none of the drawbacks. Thick veneer can be repaired, sections cut out and replaced, and re-stained to look like new.

In addition, the veneers could be pattern matched to produce some of the wonderful office desks and tables we have all admired, and allowed the art of marquetry or inlaying to be incorporated into these designs.

Sections were cut out of the veneer background and sections of different veneer cut to size and glued into the missing section.

The whole surface was then finely sanded to remove any traces of the “join”, and then polished and lacquered to protect the piece.

Another advantage  with making expensive wooden desks or tables in veneer is that much less of the expensive wood is used. A large tree can be turned into over five hundred square metres of veneer, and all of the waste chipping and dust, can be compressed together to form chipboard, or particle board,  now commonly used for most office furniture manufacture.

Even so called solid wood products such as beech dining or kitchen tables, are actually made from many thin strips of wood, glued together so that the grain of each section works against its neighbour to prevent the problems associated with solid wood. The sections of wood are finished and sanded to such a degree that it is very difficult to spot the joins.

If you think about it, any wood desk or table will have had to be made by joining sections together or using a veneer over a stable ply or laminated base, purely due to the limiting factor of tree sizes. This is even more true nowadays as managed tress are cut down after a relatively short number of years and replaced by saplings, as this is the most efficient method of wood production.

The fact that the diameter of the tree is quite small is relatively unimportant due to modern technology which can make beautiful matched sheets of veneer from sections of wood only a few inches wide.

All of this should have hopefully convinced you that wood veneer desks and tables are certainly not a poor relation to a solid wood option, even if they ever existed.

Commercially and ecologically, as well as structurally, wood veneer is by far the superior product