veneer vs solid wood?

Question

How can I destinguish veneer from solid wood on my kitchen cabinets? I want to refinish them and don't want to sand off the grain if they are veneer.

Answer 1

Check the edges and seams of the cupboards. Veneer usually has seams that show layers. solid wood only has joins. Careful though, some cabinets are a combination of both.

Answer 2

well the stiles and rails around your flat panel should be solid and the panel should be veneer. if you have a raised panel door the raised panel. could be solid or it could have a medite core with veneer over the medite. you would have to know how the door was sold whether it was sold as a solid wood raised door. most all kitchens are made from particle board with a veneer real wood is just to expensive. even your crown if you have any is probably just medite with a veneer. if you have a soid wood kitchen you are very lucky. but to answer your question look for edge tape if you have that you dont have real wood. next to that take a door use the backside and sand away you will soon find out if it is solid or not. strip the laqcur off first then sand.

Answer 3

Unscrew a handle and look in the screw hole. If it is veneer, you will see the wood change about 1/16" down the hole to some other (usually lighter) wood.

The edges of flat veneered panels are veneered all the way around to cover the base material. Look at the top and underside edge of doors. It should be end grain on solid wood and a veneer showing long grain on veneered panels.

Try stripper instead of sandpaper, you end up with really smooth surfaces to re coat. The cost and time using sandpaper which clogs fast on old finishes is a drag sometimes.

Answer 4

If you look very closely you will be able to see a layer which is separate from the larger part of the wood. If it's veneer it will probably be about 1/16" of an inch, not much thicker than your fingernail.

As for refinishing them, you don't need to sand. There is a product called "Furniture Refurbisher" made by Circa. It is not a stripper but it will clean the surface of cosmetic scratches and rough spots. Then you just stain whatever color you want. It's great stuff. I am an antique dealer and used it successfully on antiques.

Answer 5

Cmf is on the right track. It is not uncommon for the cabinets to be fabricated with a variety of materials, and based on your desire to update or rework the cabinets I would guess their age to be pre-dating some of the materials used in making doors and drawer fronts out of composit materials instead of solid materials.

You've already gotten some good advice on determining if they are solid woods or not. I would guess they are solid frames and doors. but I seriously doubt if the cases are solid wood. Probably they are a composit material. If the doors have raised panels then the cabinet boxes may be veneer (wood) if they are flat panel doors then the sides are probably a plywood skin over composit or even a vinyl wood look over particle board. But take heart you can always skin the outsides with 1/4" material yourself, there usually not a lot of exposed case material so go for it. You may even find it is a lot easier and cheaper to overlay the boxes instead of trying to sand off the existing finish.

Be careful if you use a stripper on the doors, if they are five piece construction they are assembled using glues that can be damaged by strippers if let stand with the stripper applied. This is true of the raised panels, that panel is probably made up of several pieces of wood glued together and then shaped. Don't get me wrong there pretty durable, just don't try to soak off the finish.

Don't forget to change out the cabinet pulls, makes a big difference to the finished product.

Answer 6

Check the inside of the door opening to see if you can see a seam where the veneer meets the base wood. Also check the edges of the doors for the seam. Another test is to check the grain of the wood on the outside of the door against the grain on the inside of the wood. If they match, then it is solid wood, if they don't match then it has been veneered.

Answer 7

look at the edges. it is pretty easy to distinguish where veneer is glued versus a solid wood. veneer does not wrap an edge, so there will be a seam there.

as for refinishing, are you trying to change the color or just clean them up? if just cleaning up sanding is not necessary.

btw, MOST kitchen cabinets doors will be made of solid wood. only extremely cheap ones are not since veneer is not nearly as durable or waterproof as a kitchen cabinet needs to be.

Answer 8

If it's solid it it will be heavy. Veneer combined partical board is much lighter and you should be able to tell.