Ash Veneer: Cuts and Uses

Ash veneer, cut from the wood of ash trees, is a choice wood veneer that can be applied artistically and practically to a wide range of projects.

Ash is world-renowned not only for its figure and beauty, but for its hardness, strength, and flexibility. Long the wood of choice for tool handles, baseball bats, and other applications requiring great strength and durability, ash veneer can also be used to enhance the beauty of furniture, musical instruments, paneling, and more.

Why Ash Veneer?

As has been stated, ash veneer, like solid ash wood, is exceptionally hard and strong, while remaining flexible enough to be practical for working on a variety of substrates, including curved substrates.

Ash veneer, though thinner than solid ash wood, preserves all of these respective virtues. However, many stocks of ash around the world - and particularly here in the United States - have been decimated by a pest known as the Emerald Ash Borer.

So what are some of the different cuts of ash veneer, and how are they used?

About Different Ash Veneer Cuts: Brown and White Ash

Two of the most common types of ash are colloquially known as white ash and brown ash.

White ash is commonly harvested in the United States and Europe; this is the wood from which baseball bats have historically been made. It has a light, handsome off-white color and is commonly flat or quarter-sawn to display its grain.

Brown ash is slightly darker and warmer, making the irregularities and cathedrals of the grain more apparent. This type is commonly harvested in northern areas, like the Great Lakes states, New England, and Canada. One of the prime uses of brown ash veneer is to decorate cabinetry.

Quarter-Cut Ash

Quartered ash veneer produces straight, parallel, nearly even grain orientation that creates apleasant, symmetrical appearance.

Quartersawn Ash veneer, with its long, straight grain, is excellent for ornamenting cabinets, furniture, game tables, bars, and other items, especially where end matching is a concern, since the straight lines appear to flow into each other when the panels are laid end to end.

Flat Cut Ash

Flat-cut ash veneer produces a more irregular-looking grain pattern, with beautifully, sharply-spired cathedrals and occasionally rounded or oblong ocellations that produce a pleasing asymmetry.

Though they are not as prim and clean as the lines associated with quarter-cut veneer, flat-cut ash veneer is still commonly used to decorate furniture like tables, chairs, bookcases, and much more.

Also, thanks to its light color, ash veneer responds well to staining and finishing, so you can take advantage of the unique patterning and grain orientation of the wood by staining it according to your preferences.

White Rotary Ash Veneer

Rotary cut ash veneer is produced by rotating a log while shaving a full-length, continuous sheet from it.

This method produces some of the most beautiful veneers and grain patterns of all, and in ash can produce flame patterns, cathedrals, swirls, and ocellations that give the veneer a beautiful, bespoke appearance.

This uniqueness makes rotary-cut ash veneer suitable for ornamentation, furniture making, and cabinetry, as it is very eye-catching. Because of the variegated patterning of the veneer sheets, which follow the tree’s growth ring patterns, it is also useful for paneling.

Japanese Tamo

Japanese Tamo ash veneer has a very unique grain pattern, not entirely unlike rotary cut veneer, except this style of veneer has a darker brown coloration and wild “peanut” figure that contains flames, swirls, sharp cathedrals, ripples reminiscent of water, and other pleasing grain irregularities

This style of ash veneer, due to its unique wheat-colored character and pleasant grain orientation, is suitable for furniture, cabinetry, paneling, doors, and flooring.

Ash Burl Veneer: White, Olive, and Patchwork

Burl wood is produced when trees grow buds that do not properly develop or from injury or disease. This tissue forms into large, misshapen welts on the tree that are unsightly on the log, and beautiful when sliced into veneer.

Burl veneer is hard, strong, and exhibits some of the most beautiful grain patterns of all species and cuts. Irregular and often lustrous, ash burl veneer contains flames, stripes, and birds’ eyes, among other unique patterns.

Burl wood is prized for its decorative appeal and can be used in the ornamentation of furniture, cabinets,, panelling, as well as decorative items like picture frames, seating, musical instruments and more.

Rustic Ash Veneer

Rustic ash veneer, like our two-tone rustic ash, showcases a combination of straight and wavy grain and cathedrals and sports a pleasant interplay between natural light and darker wood tones.

This makes it ideal in settings in which a coarser, more rugged appearance is desired, though this style of veneer is still suitable for furniture and paneling. You just need to suit the aesthetic to the setting.

Other Colors: Blackened and Silver Dyed

In addition to the cuts, colors and styles of ash veneer already mentioned, Oakwood also carries blackened and silver dyed veneers that offer a slightly different look.

For instance, our Italian Blackened ash veneer is a reconstituted wood veneer that has been dyed. It offers excellent uniformity for both sequence and end-matching, as well as a darker tone that is ideal for neutral interiors.

Our Platinum Silver Dyed ash veneer is dyed a neutral, light silver tone and is also perfect for use in neutral interiors in which a gray scale predominates.

Questions About Your Project? Contact Us

These are some of the ash veneer specimens we carry, but there are others in our collection, all of which offer a unique character and which have many suitable applications for interior projects.

If you have any questions about our ash veneer suitability, matching, or application, feel free to contact us at 800-426-6018.