Using your senses to tell solid wood from veneer (without licking anything, please)

When you’re eyeing up a piece of furniture - whether it’s on Marketplace or sitting patiently in an antiques shop - your senses are great tools for figuring out whether it’s solid wood or veneer. In this article, we explore how we can use them. 

But first... what is veneer, and why does it matter? 

Veneer is simply a thin layer of real wood applied over a core, which could be plywood, MDF, particle board, or a cheaper solid substrate like birch. 

If you’re restoring a piece, knowing whether it’s veneered is crucial. 

• Sanding? Go gently. Veneer is thin enough to sand through before you can say “where did that patch come from?” Edges can be thinner, so they’re especially vulnerable. 

• Staining? Veneer can absorb stain unevenly, sometimes producing blotchiness.  

• Painting? You’re generally safe, but you still need a light touch when keying the surface, as you still don’t want to reveal the substrate. 

  
  

Now, let’s explore our senses. 

Sight:  

Start by looking for repeating patterns over a flat surface. Real wood has varying grain - no two patches of grain are exactly the same - whereas veneer, especially on MDF, can show similar swirls that look like they’vebeen copied and pasted by a Photoshop amateur. End grain is another giveaway - on solid wood, you’ll see the grain wrapping naturally around corners and edges. On veneered pieces, the edges can look a bit stuck on, because… well, they are. 

Sound: 

Give it a gentle tap with your knuckles. Solid wood tends to sound dense and, well, solid. Veneer over MDF or particle board can sound more hollow. Try out the tap test on pieces you own – ideally, pieces which you know are solid or veneered, and you can learn to hear the difference. You can also run your finger along a surface – veneer will sound like it’s thin (I suppose because it is). 

Touch: 

During your sound test when you’re running your finger over a surface, notice how it feels. Veneer will feel thin and almost papery. Solid wood often feels heavy and thick to the touch, as if you can feel the depth of wood with your fingertip. 

You can also lift the piece (if you can do so without putting your back out or alarming a shop assistant). Solid wood is heavy. Veneered pieces, especially those over MDF, tend to be lighter. 

Smell: 

As far as I’m aware, humans can’t smell the difference between real wood and engineered wood... but it would be cool if someone trained their dog to alert against MDF - 3 angry barks would suffice. 

Taste: 

Our fifth and final sense, which we will not be adopting during this investigation. No nibbling the table legs – that includes your MDF-alerting-dog.  

Myth busting: all jokes aside... veneer isn’t the villain 

Lots of my clients assume veneer means cheap or flimsy, but that’s not the full story. Many beautiful antiques are veneered - often over birch - with walnut, mahogany, or exotic woods that would be outrageously expensive if solid. Veneering allowed makers to create beautiful pieces for far less cost, and many of those pieces have stood the test of time. Veneer is just a different way to create a piece of furniture – it's not necessarily inferior.