Burr Walnut Veneer stock for classic car dashboard restoration

Behind the scenes with Simon Lorkin | Classic Dashboards

I thought you might be curious about the veneer stock that I use for classic car dashboard and woodwork restoration. I have a regular supply that I keep stocked up for individual dashboard projects. When it’s a whole set of woodwork for a car, such as a Jaguar MKII, Rolls Royce Silver Cloud or Bentley it’s important, well imperative in fact that the wood grain all matches so the car looks perfect when finished.

I have to admit to being a bit of a perfectionist with regards to the grain and placement of the burr walnut veneer. I’ve been known to strip newly re-veneered pieces if I’m not 100% happy with the overall look. I ensure that it’s book-matched as it would have been originally and with cross-banding where necessary.

I have several large projects on the go at the moment so needed to restock. One of the cars a Mercedes Pullman W100 is a stretch limousine and has sixty pieces of woodwork. Yes, SIXTY!

Veneer comes in packs of say 24 sheets sliced thinly from the same tree and most of the time I’ll buy a pack or two at a time. This time I contacted my supplier with information as to the number and sizes of sheets required for the upcoming projects and this time I didn’t buy a couple of packs. I bought a tree! Yes, for the quantities required it was better for me to by the veneer from a whole tree as a job lot. This ensured that the grain would all be similar giving me the most options for the usage of the veneer sheets.

So here are the packs as they arrive at the workshop. They look quite ‘grey’ and ‘flat’ with little contrast in the wood grain, but that’s all put right at a later stage. The warm honey colours and contrast are all developed during the later processes and finishing.