Veneering & Inlay

Veneering and inlay are the techniques that let one piece of furniture display wood you couldn't otherwise build with — figured curls, burls, rare exotics, and species too unstable in solid form to hold up over decades. A mahogany table built with quartersawn solid mahogany is one piece of furniture; the same table veneered with crotch mahogany over a stable substrate is something else entirely. Inlay adds a second visual register on top, banding and stringing and pictorial work that signals craft beyond the joinery alone.

The substrate choice — MDF, baltic birch ply, solid stable lumber — determines how the veneered piece moves over time. Modern PVA glues and cold-press techniques produce panels indistinguishable from traditional hide-glued work, with a fraction of the equipment overhead. Hot hide glue is still the right call for repair work, restoration, and any piece destined for museum-grade longevity. Inlay work uses the same routing and chiseling techniques as hand-cut joinery, scaled down — a 1/16-inch chisel paring a 1/8-inch line.

The guides below cover veneer cutting and laying, substrate prep, glue choice (PVA vs hide), inlay banding and pictorial work, and the press setups that keep large veneered panels flat from clamp-up to finish.