Balanced Match: Two or more veneers components or leaves of equal size to make a single face.

Book Match: Adjacent pieces of veneer from a flitch or log are opened like a book and spliced to make up the face with matching occurring at the spliced joints. The fibers of the wood, slanting in opposite direction in the adjacent sheets, create a characteristic light and dark effect when the surface is seen from an angle.

Cathedral: A grain appearance characterized by a series of stacked and inverted "V" or cathedral type spring wood (early wood) summerwood (late wood) patterns common in plain-sliced veneer.

Center Match: An even number of veneer components or leaves of equal size matched with a joint in the center of the panel to achieve horizontal symmetry.

Comb Grain: A quality of rift cut veneer with exceptionally straight grain and closely spaced growth increments resembling the appearance of long strands of combed hair.

Core: The inner part of plywood between face and back, usually veneer. Sawn lumber, particleboard. MDF, hardboard, or other material is used as cores.

Cross Banding: Veneer used in the construction of plywood with five or more plies. Crossbands are placed at right angles to the grain of the faces and are typically placed adjacent to the face and back. Also refers to all inner layers of veneer whose grain direction runs perpendicular to that of the outer plies and includes parallel laminated plies.

Flitch: A complete bundle of veneer sheets laid together in

Gum Spots and Streaks: Gum or resinous material or color spots and streaks caused by prior resin accumulations sometimes found on panel surfaces.

Half-Round: A method of veneer cutting similar to rotary cutting, except that the piece being cut is secured to a "stay log," a device that permits the cutting of the log on a wider sweep then when mounted with its center secured in the lathe to produce rotary sliced veneer. A type of half round cutting is used to achieve plain-sliced or flat-cut veneer.

Hardboard: Homogeneous panels manufactured primarily from inter-felted lignocellulosic (wood) fibers consolidated under heat and pressure with a density of 497 kg/m3 or more.

Hardwood: General term used to designate lumber or veneer produced from temperate zone deciduous or tropical broad-leaved trees in contrast to softwood, which is produced from trees which are usually needle bearing or coniferous. The term does not infer hardness in its physical sense.

Inner Plies: Plies other than face or back plies in a panel construction. Crossbands and centers are classed as inner plies.

Medium Density Fiberboard (MDF): A panel or core product manufactured from wood fibers combined with a symmetric resin or other bonding system. MDF is manufactured with a minimum density of 497 kg/m3 up to 881 kg/m3 by the application of heat and pressure by a process in which the fiber bond is substantially created by the added adhesive system.

Particleboard: A panel or core composed of small particles of wood and wood fiber that are bonded together with synthetic resin adhesives in the presence of heat and pressure.

Plain-Sliced (Flat-Cut): Veneer sliced parallel to the pith of the log and approximately tangent to the growth rings to achieve flat-cut veneer. Plain-sliced veneer is cut using either a horizontal or vertical slicing machine or by the half-round method using a rotary lathe.

Pleasing Matched: A face containing components which provides a pleasing overall appearance. The grain of the various components need not be matched at the joints. Sharp color contrasts at the joints of the components are not permitted.

Ply: A single set of veneer or several strips laid with adjoining edges that may or may not be glued, which forms one veneer lamina in a glued panel. In some constructions, a ply is used to refer to other wood components such as particleboard or MDF.

Plywood, Hardwood: A panel composed of an assembly of layers or plies of veneer or veneers in combination with lumber core, particleboard core, MDF core, hardboard core, or of a special core material joined with an adhesive. Except constructions, the grain of alternate plies is at right angles and the face veneer is a hardwood species.

Quarter-Sliced: A straight grain appearance achieved through the process of quarter-slicing or through the use of veneer cut in any fashion that produces a straight grain effect. Cut is radial to the pith to the extent that ray fleck is produced, and the amount of fleck is not limited.

Random Matched (Mismatched): A panel having the face made up of specially selected dissimilar (in color and grain) veneer strips of the same species and generally V-grooved at the joints between strips to stimulate lumber planking.

Rift-Cut: A straight grain appearance achieved through the process of cutting at a slight angle to the radial on the half-round stay log or through the use of veneer cut in any fashion that produces a straight grain with minimal ray fleck.

Rotary Cut: Veneer produced by centering the log in a lathe a turning it against a broad cutting knife which is set into the log at a slight angle.

Running Match: The panel face is made from the components running through the flitch consecutively. Any portion of a component left over from a face is used as the beginning component or leaf in starting the next panel.

Sliced: Veneer produced by thrusting a log or sawed flitch into a slicing machine which shears off the veneer in sheets.

Slip Matched: A sheet from a flitch is slid beneath and, without turning at the joints.

Softwood: General term used to describe lumber or veneer produced from needle and/or cone bearing trees. SM#: Sequenced, matched, numbered. Veneer taken from same log - cut in sequence. Numbered in order for matched panels.

Veneer: A thin sheet of wood, rotary cut, sliced, or sawed from a log, bolt, or flitch.