CURVING MAPLE VENEERS.
If you wish to curve a veneer so that it will fit a half or a whole circle, it is easily done by dipping it in hot water, when it will instantly curl up into any shape you want. I do this with bird’s eye maple. This wood is easily stained any hue, and is rather handsomer in chocolate brown than in its natural color. It is then the nearest to French oak of any wood that we have, and that is unquestionably superb. Such markings and mottlings as it has, surpass anything ever seen; it is a deep, rich, chocolate brown color, full of snarls, curves, and knots, not over five eights of an inch in their largest diameters, and so beautiful that it seems as if some hand must have arranged them.
The French oak is susceptible of a splendid polish, but I am unable to say how it works, for I never worked any, nor do I know where to get it. Curled maple will also take a handsome dye. Get Howe & Stevens’s Dye Colors in powder—they can be had in any apothecary’s store, of any shade—put it in an earthen dish and boil it, then dip or sponge the veneer with it. The color will strike through and through, and you may sand-paper it as much as you please without removing it. It is a very beautiful job to take a plain ogee moulding and curl a bird’s eye maple veneer on the round part, and an ebony veneer on the fillet or hollow, and then varnish and polish it. It makes one of the most beautiful picture frames that ever was seen; having all the effect of mouldings made from the solid wood.