Veneering a dovetailed box

Dennis Heyza

Dennis Heyza

New member
I'm starting to work on a box to hold cremains. The core will be made of 1/2" quartersawn white pine in a manner similar to a tea chest; all six sides glued together and the lid sawn off after assembly. Because I work with only hand tools, the core will be dovetailed as opposed to mitered and splined. This will be my first time veneering (will do some trial pieces beforehand) and have two questions.

1. Considering the ultimate use, is there any good reason to veneer the inside of the box? I've heard varying opinions regarding the need to veneer both sides.
2. If I did veneer the inside, would I veneer the "in" side of the pieces and then cut the dovetails or would I cut the dovetails and then veneer only the "seen" portion of the pieces so there is no veneer on the pins and tails?

Thanks for any suggestions.

Dennis Heyza
Great Lakes Chapter
 
Also, I stumbled across something that said veneering over dovetails is a bad idea as they can "telegraph" through the veneer over time. Can anyone confirm or dispute that? I plan to use 1/16 thick veneers.
 
Dennis Heyza said:
I'm starting to work on a box to hold cremains. The core will be made of 1/2" quartersawn white pine in a manner similar to a tea chest; all six sides glued together and the lid sawn off after assembly. Because I work with only hand tools, the core will be dovetailed as opposed to mitered and splined. This will be my first time veneering (will do some trial pieces beforehand) and have two questions.

1. Considering the ultimate use, is there any good reason to veneer the inside of the box? I've heard varying opinions regarding the need to veneer both sides.
2. If I did veneer the inside, would I veneer the "in" side of the pieces and then cut the dovetails or would I cut the dovetails and then veneer only the "seen" portion of the pieces so there is no veneer on the pins and tails?

Thanks for any suggestions.

Dennis Heyza
Great Lakes Chapter
Click to expand...
If I were making a box like this I would not particularly veneer the inside, the inside should not be seen and it is not a significally large panel that could warrant any veneer. That being said, If I did decide to veneer the inside with Pear of Maple to make sure of it not warping; I would first lay out my dovetails, then do my veneering up to the registration lines for the dovetails. Don't veneer the dovetails because the veneer will show on the outside.
 
There are a couple of issues here. The only reason I can see to veneer the inside of the box is that the box is only 1/2" thick and it is possible that the outside will bow from the wet glue, if the inside isn't wetted at the same time. You could just apply water to the inside, I suppose. That would balance the substrate somewhat. My rule of thumb is that if the substrate is 3/4" or more thick then it is resistant enough to bowing to allow only applying glue/veneer to one face.
On the dovetails telegraphing - that is much more an issue as the veneer gets thinner. With commercial veneer I would apply a layer of cross veneer (ie perpedicular to the grain of the substrate) first to hide the dovetails, then apply the decorative veneer on top, parallel to the grain of the substrate. I have had good success with this and I'd be very surprised and disappointed if it didn't work. Do you need to do that with 1/16" veneer? My gut says no, though it certainly wouldn't hurt. I'd be interested in knowing how it goes.
 
I'm really late on this but wanted to thank everyone for the responses. I ended up doing mitered corners instead of dovetails, and left the inside unfinished. Also incorporated my first attempt at marquetry. I'm quite pleased with the results.
 
I'm glad to hear that it worked out well. Mitering the corners is a good way of getting around potentially telegraphing joints.
 
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