What is reconstituted veneer?

Veneered wood-derived panels are often used in furniture making. Veneers are made from logs of different species by peeling or cutting them at certain angles to produce different wood designs. The more expensive and rare the wood species, the more expensive and harder to find veneers. What's more, more and more woods are becoming protected and their exploitation restricted. Such is the case walnut to us, or to palisander in Brazil or Madagascar. Hence the need for a material that is non-plastic, resembles natural veneer and can be easily used. This is how reconstituted veneer came about.

Reconstituted antler is an industrial product made from natural veneers, but from cheaper and fast-growing species such as poplar, spruce or ocoume (exotic species). The first composite veneer was made in Italy more than 40 years ago. After that, their production and use slowly began to spread to other countries.

When China entered the industry in the 1990s, the production of reconstituted veneers exploded. It is now practically the center of their production, with 10 large factories each producing according to their target customers: cheaper, more expensive, naturally patterned, geometrically patterned, etc. Virtually any naturally occurring essence can be reproduced, but in addition to these reproductions, there have also been veneers with geometric patterns, animal skin imitation or fancy patterned veneers.

How these veneers are produced. What is the technology

First, natural veneers of the above-mentioned essences are obtained by scrolling. Then they are colored by immersion in baths with water-dilutable dyes. They are removed and dried, after which they are laid one on top of the other in a predetermined pattern. When the whole veneer pile is formed according to the pattern, the veneer is again taken veneer by veneer and adhesive is applied. The adhesive layers are important not only for the gluing, but also for the final design. With the veneers to which glue has been applied, the pile is rebuilt and placed in the press for gluing. The result is basically a large layer of glued veneers which is then shaped, i.e. the edges are cut to a parallelepiped shape. The parallelepiped, basically the new 'trunk', is turned through 90 degrees and 0,6 mm thick veneers are cut from it.

Advantages of using such veneers:

• attractive price
• veneer sheet sizes much larger than the natural ones

• Environmentally friendly - in addition to using fast-growing species in the production process, water-soluble colorants with no heavy metal content are used and the adhesive can be controlled to be class 0 formaldehyde E0
• any design, natural or not, in any color
• you get a denser and more uniform product than the natural one, so the subsequent coloration is more uniform
• The perfect reproduction of the design on each product, which makes it very suitable for decorating furniture in large spaces such as restaurants, shops, public institutions.

The big disadvantage of this veneer is that it is not natural. A natural veneer has imperfections, it has naturalness. This is exactly what we want when we put wooden furniture in our home.