What is 'construction veneer'?

[dkaardal]

My question is this: Is 'construction veneer' just a sheet of 1.5mm thick, good quality veneer? Or does it mean something else entirely?

Reason for asking:

I find myself needing to create a bunch of curved panels for an oval baby crib/cot. The largest panels will be around 21" wide by around 27" tall, and I'd like them to end up around 1/2" thick. Radius will be 14 1/4".

(533mm wide x 568mm tall x 12mm thick)

The panels need to have high quality maple on both sides when they're done. Robbins Timber in Bristol has something called 'Construction Veneer' that is 1.5mm thick. If I use that, I figure the panels can have 5 layers - 3 sheets of 3mm baltic birch plywood in the middle, sandwiched between a layer of the maple construction veneer.

Another option: They do have 4mm maple veneered plywood - though 4mm is getting thicker then I'd like when it comes to bending. Also, I figured more layers would equal more strength and stability as well as less springback.

Here's a pic of a sketchup model I made of the project for illustrative purposes:

 

[woodpig]

I bought what was called construction veneer some years back and it was just 1.5mm thick Beech. I laminated it with coloured veneer to make decorative ply for a pistol grip.

 

[dkaardal]

Sounds like it's just what I need then!

 

[Chrispy]

I don't understand why do you want to use construction veneer? if you can bend 3mm ply and laminate that for the core then use ordinary 0.7mm veneer on the faces, it will be much cheaper and better quality as well.

 

[worn thumbs]

Construction veneer is usually used to laminate shaped structures and can be had in various thicknesses.It is often used for cold moulding boat hulls.It has the advantage that when glued well the edge of the laminate looks like solid wood whereas ply shows the various cross grain layers.A bit of googling should yield a range of different timbers and sizes.

 

[dkaardal]

I've not had a lot of experience with applying veneer - anything less then 1mm makes me a little twitchy to be honest.

Curving 3mm plywood can be done over a simple one or two piece mould and I'd not be worried about any wrinkles, kinks, or suchlike. If I applied a thin veneer, I feel that I'd really need to do it after the plywood panel was laminated and curved... in which case I'd end up wanting to use a vacuum press.

Which I don't have.

I'm up against a bit of a deadline with this, so while I'm sure I could get up to speed on veneering with a vacuum press fairly quickly I have very few weekends left until I need to have the crib ready.

We'll see though. I've send an inquiry to Robbins asking some questions, so depending on what they say I might have to go the veneer route anyway.

dak.