[Treenewt]

Originally Posted by gr81dorn

The key thing you're not considering here is that much of the wood that is used for veneer wouldn't yield solid wood in the first place, so it's chosen to be veneer at the sawmill or once it's become offall at the sawmill or another manufacturing point.

Martin isn't slicing up usable solid koa - they're not slicing up anything, a sawmill has made that determination long before it ever arrives at Martin to make it into anything.

Making veneer is a very responsible means to maximize the use of some of the rarer/prettier material, so sometimes it's just decided to make veneer to get more use out of something, but a lot of the time it's recovery.

You'd also be shocked at how thin we can slice it...the veneer industry uses some weird fractions, but it's common for veneer to be 1/42", especially when it has no need to be durable but purely to used for appearance.

Great points