Matching Seams – The Rule of 2

Written by Dave Topics:Blog, federal, Inlay, Tip, Woodworking

Remember in my blog post “It’s All Done With Mirrors” when I wrote that when I open up a package of sequenced veneer that the first this I do it number the pieces? Well this is when I explain a bit more of why I do that.

When veneering surfaces you can pick many different styles. You can use one big piece of veneer or one of the following:

Straight book matching
4-way book matching
Radial matching (in the case of round pieces)

Here I want to address a potential problem that can happen with both 4-way & radial methods.

When we start laying out for both of these styles we tend to go in numerical order (1, 2, 3…). But this can come back and bite you is when the seams from veneer piece 4 matches up to veneer piece 1 (in the case of 4-way matching. Or the seams from your last piece of veneer butting up to your first piece in the case of radial matching.

When companies cut & sequence veneer they slice and stack it in the order it was cut from the log. The further down the pile you go the more likely your grain patterns change. Sometimes this differs slightly but sometimes it’s quite drastic. It all depends on the tree.

So to try and reduce the chance of dealing with this I use The Rule of 2.

The Rule of 2 says that no piece of veneer shall be butted up to another piece higher than 2x from the number you gave it in the beginning? (Confusing I know but take a look at the two examples below.)