Veneering the back of a raised panel composite door insert

K

klkirkman

Well-known member
I am involved with a project in which I would like to veneer the back of a raised panel door tombstone insert, and I have been cautioned by a very experienced furniture builder that to do so may result in severe cupping of the panel.

The particulars are that the raised panel is to be about 8 x 30 by perhaps 1/2-inch finished thickness surrounded by a frame that is about 3/4 -inch x 3 inch rails on the sides and obviously somewhat wider at the top to accommodate the circular tombstone top cutout.

The door framing material is to be tiger maple, and the raised panel insert to be made  from a slab of extremely heavily figured maple burl - parhaps best described as approaching crumbling, with the veneer on the rear of this insert panel to be camphor burl. I mention the materials to indicate why I feel driven to the construction I described to maintain the contrasting grains and figures.

Any advice about how to give this the best chance of success would be extremely valuable to me.

Karl
 
I did not build it, but I know of a tombstone doors built from a single very highly figured pc of walnut, resawn to about 1/2 to 3/8(I am guessing here), backed with about a (1/2 to 3/8 guessing again)or so pc of butternut(facing the interior)- the pc were not glued glued together- but rather both raised tombstone style and fit just snugly in the groove. I know this lasted at least 40 years(the desk was built in 1958). I do not particularly like door interior's to be raised, but this fellow did this because the pc of walnut for the door face was extremely beautiful- but too thin to yield two panels when resawn of the proper thickness. This arrangement left the panels each with enough "body" for stablility- the "tongues" of the panels were each a bit thin- but when slid together in the groove the panel seemed as though it were solid. I could not tell it had been made in this manner from observation- the builder told me this method.
I realize your wood species are much less stable than the walnut/butternut arrangement.
His panels fit snugly together even after so many years(I would worry that they might "rattle" after time)_ so if I were using two dissimilar pcs of wood, I believe I would consider some single point mechanical means of fixing the two panels together from the center, so that the pcs might not move relative to one another.
 
If captured in a properly constructed traditional mortised and tenoned door frame there is no need to veneer the backside of a panel raised or (Composite material excluded) otherwise other than for ornamentation. If captured in a door frame then how can the panel move other than seasonal movement across it's width. This is not meant to offend.
 
Jeff,

Perhaps I did not make this clear, but it is being veneered because it wants to show on the inside a different species of wood than the outside front; Burl maple on the outside front, and Camphor burl on the inside front.

Perhaps not every ones cup of tea, but I happen to like it.

Sorry that my problem statement was faulty.

Karl
 
I am with Jeff that a 1/2 inch panel trapped in a frame should stay fairly flat. If you can make the two sides of the panel about the same thickness that would help as well.
 
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