How to repair veneer on antique furniture 

This videos are gold, do not understand why you don't have more subscribers

As a retired teacher I absolutely love the way you teach and demonstrate what to do. I thoroughly enjoyed watching this really informational video and learnt a lot. I am looking to repair some oak veneer on the side panel of an art nouveau dressing chest of drawers so still at the research stage.

Appreciate your humble way of being informative making sure to include all the very necessary details and tips without talking to your audience as though they were a bunch of dummies or rattling on with unnecessary verbiage. I respect what you do and how you deliver the info. Diamond in the rough.

That was Great Alex! I also appreciate seeing a proper Englishman in short pants!! Thanks for the Video. Beautiful Job!

Thanks Alex, your video took a little of the mystery of veneers and their repair away and I’ve now been able to patch repair a veneer to the top of a small antique chest of drawers that’s been irritating me for twenty something years. I won’t say I’ve done as a good a job as a professional would do but the chest does look a whole lot better to me than it did before. Many Thanks Paul in Cyprus.

Stunning piece - and great veneer work! Thanks for sharing

Just watched the repolishing video followed by the veneer repair. Very informative and useful to me as I'm not so good with the polishing and colouring aspect of restoration. When I patch veneers I make good use of my disc sander to get a good fit but do like your idea with the blade to trim and get the best fit. I don't use the contact adhesives, I prefer my good old glue pot and pearl glue, albeit it means a clamp or tape overnight to dry. Thanks for the all the tips.

Beautifully constructed piece of furniture and your sympathetic restoration has, in my mind, added to the all round desirability of the cupboard.

I didn't know you had a RU-vid channel 👏👏👏 this is great news, thanks Alex

your best video to date, top notch production and content!

Hi Alex, here in Italy I bought a house in the mountains with many antique furniture, so I am trying to do restoration myself and I am really learning a lot with your videos

Cracking vid Alex. One tip I use is when using a blade or scraper to lift a section of veneer I heat the blade as well.

Saw this after I tried doing mine. Can see where issues I had came from especially the different hardness of the new piece. On the older piece the pores are not very visible but the new piece took up the stain and made them stand out too much. Still for a 1st attempt I'm quite pleased just to give it a go. I'm also adding depth to the wardrobe making the inserted piece a feature... pillar like. Finally cutting the double with unit in half so that after 7 years and 2 houses we can finally get it up the stairs. I'll use dowels to locate the two halves and some brass plates to lock it in. The top piece is even more complicated than the one there so again a feature will be added to hide the join in plain sight !

Great job, amazing color match!

Good work Alex - very nice video - good info and well presented!

Helpful video. Never replaced veneer before, but am going to use your advice and hope I have a steady hand and some sharp blades. 😀 Thanks for the inspiration.

Stunning....what a perfect match 👌

Brilliant..really interesting..enjoyed that.

A superb job, and well explained. Many thanks. More on this and related topics, please!

Very good video Alex

Veneer work can be a challenge. When I cut my patches I slightly over size them and under cut the edges then glue and clamp in place. This tightens my fits. The end results are what I love to see. The only veneer work I am doing is quite thin and brittle stuff.

I have reservations regarding the use of contact adhesive; from my experience this stuff degrades badly over time. I had a walnut veneered telephone table made in the late 60's, and the glue had turned to powder; so much so, I was able to lift the veneer intact, just by moving a palette knife under the surface. While I appreciate the modern equivalents maybe superior, I believe it's still fundamentally the same product.

Hide glue and a veneer hammer surely?! Evostick and contact adhesives are infamous across the trade and are strongly associated with cowboys. They offer very little future repairability and are entirely unsympathetic. I'm curious why you wouldn't use the traditional methods, which are just as easy?

Impact glue is fine for formica work….I you must I would suggest shielding the surrounding areas with masking tape..

Where do i buy replacement sheets / pieces of veneer? Any B&Q maybe?

Try getting the camera man in the same room as the repair. It was difficult to see some of the work being completed.

Camera zoom was hard to follow. Should have left to close up shot the whole way.

Wrong glue

I think he’s more suited to butchery than furniture restoration. Just watched him “restoring” an old worm eaten chest of drawers on “The Restorers” He used a spade bit to drill holes for dowels. Surprise, surprise the end of one of the drawer dividers split open as he was drilling it and no mention of how he dealt with the parts that consisted of more holes than wood.