Solid wood, veneer or wood effect: how to tell the difference

The three types of construction

Solid wood means that a component consists entirely of natural wood. Solid table tops are typically between 25 and 40 millimetres (1.0 and 1.6 in) thick; for sideboard tops and shelves, thinner boards are also common. More important than the figure is what it describes: the same material runs through the entire thickness, and the grain at the edge is the same as on top, because it is the same wood. Wide boards are almost always glued together from several staves. That remains solid wood, because each individual stave is natural wood.

Real wood veneer is a thin layer of real wood, in furniture making usually less than one millimetre (0.04 in) thick, applied to a substrate board. The substrate is usually MDF, chipboard or blockboard. On top lies natural wood with a real grain; underneath lies a board material.

A description often names both side by side, solid wood and veneer of the same species. This is not a contradiction but the classic mixed construction: narrow, load-bearing or heavily used parts such as legs, frames and edges in solid wood, large surfaces such as tops, doors and side panels veneered. This construction keeps wide surfaces dimensionally stable and uses the fine wood where it is visible.

Wood effect is printed or coated material with no wood content in the visible surface. Typical examples are melamine-resin-coated decor papers, foils and lacquers on MDF or chipboard. The decor reproduces a grain that never grew.

How to check a piece

The edge is the most reliable clue. With solid wood, the grain continues over the edge into the material. On the two ends, that is, where the fibres are cut across, end grain appears: it looks distinctly different from the surface, more porous and more absorbent, which is why it takes up more oil and stain and looks darker. The two long edges show no end grain but continuous grain. With veneer, the pattern ends at the edge or is covered by separately applied edge banding. With coated boards, the edge is almost always an edge band running all the way round, with a fine joint to the surface.

Repetition distinguishes veneer from print. Natural wood never repeats itself. Printed decors are produced by roller printing, and the circumference of the printing roller determines the length of the pattern. On large surfaces or on several surfaces, the same knot therefore appears a second time. Anyone who finds two identically marked spots is looking at a wood effect.

Weight helps only to a limited extent. As a rough guide, the density of MDF is about 700 to 850 kilograms per cubic metre (43.7 to 53.1 lb per cubic foot), that of chipboard about 600 to 750 (37.5 to 46.8), while dry oak or ash is around 700 (43.7). A board material can therefore turn out just as heavy as solid wood, or even heavier. Heavy alone proves nothing. Weight only becomes meaningful together with a second feature, such as visible end grain on the ends.

Sound is a weaker clue. Solid wood answers a knock with a deeper and longer sound, a fibreboard with a short and dull one. With veneered parts, what you hear is the substrate anyway, not the top layer.

What each type of construction can really do

Solid wood can be refinished. A scratch is sanded out and the spot treated again. With oiled surfaces this often works locally; with lacquered ones usually only by sanding down the whole surface and building it up again. This repairability has a price: solid wood moves. It absorbs moisture from the air and releases it again, swells in humid months and shrinks in the heating season, markedly across the grain, hardly at all along it. Solid tops therefore need constructions that allow this movement, such as sliding dovetail battens or slotted holes for the screws. If a solid top is clamped rigidly, it will crack over time. An indoor climate of about 40 to 60 per cent relative humidity keeps the movement within a non-critical range.

Veneer is more dimensionally stable, because the board material hardly reacts to changes in humidity. That is why very large, very thin or organically curved tops can keep their shape permanently in the first place. In solid wood such shapes would be laborious and prone to cracking. Veneer also uses fine woods sparingly: a trunk that yields only a few boards as sawn timber provides many square metres of surface as veneer. The disadvantage follows directly from its thinness. Sanding through is final, because there is no continuation of the grain beneath the layer.

Coated surfaces are generally the most resistant. Melamine resin coatings resist scratches, stains and moisture better than an oiled wood surface and hardly change over the years. In return they cannot be repaired: what is worn through or has split open stays visible. Nor do they age; they wear, while solid wood and veneer darken or fade under light and develop a patina.

Which type of construction suits which use

None of the three types of construction is generally superior to the others; they do different jobs. Solid wood plays to its strength where a surface is touched and used over years and will need refinishing at some point. Veneer has the advantage where large or curved surfaces have to stay dimensionally stable, and it is the more resource-efficient way to make a rare wood visible. Coated surfaces belong where robustness and ease of care come first, for instance in children's rooms, work areas and damper rooms.

What matters, therefore, is not the type of construction but that it is named. "Solid oak, oiled" is a specification. "MDF with walnut veneer" is a specification. "Melamine-coated chipboard in wood decor" is a specification. "Fine wood design" is not one, and "wood-based material in oak effect" tells only half the truth, because it leaves open whether the surface consists of wood. Anyone who cannot tell the type of construction from a description has good reason to ask.