Backyard Birds – Part 24

Written By Sasha Kopf

For the side panels of my cabinet, my dad suggested that I use some jarrah burl veneer that he’d had around for years.

Jarrah, or Eucalyptus marginata, is an Australian tree in the myrtle family. Its wood is a rich brown with some red undertones that would compliment the padauk on the cabinet. My dad had a whole packet of jarrah veneer that all came from one large burl.

A burl is an irregular growth on a tree, typically caused by some sort of injury or infection. The pictures below are examples of burls that I have seen while hiking in Massachusetts.

Photograph of a large, twisty burl near the bottom of a tree trunk
Photograph of a smaller burl higher up on a tree trunk

The insides of burls have chaotic grain structures with lots of swirls, knots, and other interesting marks. From an aesthetic perspective, this makes them great for woodworking projects. However, their lack of regular grain structure also makes them fragile. Burl veneer breaks easily, and so it is common for pieces of burl veneer to have holes.

Because the jarrah veneer was all cross-sections of the same burl, each piece of veneer had a similar pattern, as well as similar holes. Matching sets of veneer like this are called bookmatches.

Photograph of three large pieces of jarrah burl veneer laid out on a workbench. All three pieces of veneer look almost identical because they are cross-sections of the same piece of wood

These pieces of veneer were not the right size for the large side panels on my cabinet. But I could use multiple, smaller pieces of the bookmatched set and fit them together to make the sides. The picture below shows the bookmatched veneer once I had sliced off the pieces that I was going to use. These remaining pieces can be used in a similar way for a future project.

Photograph of four pieces of jarrah burl veneer, fanned out like a deck of cards. Rectangles of veneer have been cut out of the top right corners of each piece

Before doing too much more work with the burl veneer, I needed to flatten it. Many veneers, particularly burl veneers, are wavy, which makes them extra fragile and difficult to cut. There are liquid solutions that can be sprayed onto the veneer to help loosen the wood fibers, and then they can be put in a press to keep them flat until the solution dries. The combination of flattening solution and pressing will usually keep the veneer flat enough to work with for at least a few days, and then it will be permanently flattened when it is glued to a substrate. The picture below shows four of my pieces of jarrah burl after being flattened overnight.

Photograph of four rectangular pieces of jarrah burl veneer. In comparison to photograph above, they are much flatter

I laid out the burl veneer so that the grain structures were symmetrical, creating a sort of ink blot effect. Then I cut the inside edges of the veneer – the sides that would meet up with the other pieces – with a straight edge and a veneer saw.

Photograph of four pieces of burl veneer laid out with markings showing which piece will attach to which

I used veneer tape to join the four pieces together to form one big piece of veneer that could be glued to MDF to make one of the sides of the cabinet.

Photograph of four pieces of burl veneer attached together with veneer tape in a cross shape

Here is a picture of a side panel, with the four bookmatched rectangles of burl veneer glued to a piece of MDF and sanded.

Sasha Kopf
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Backyard Birds – Part 23