What I found out over the 30yr course of doing in-house veneer layups is that veneering is an art form. It takes time and someone dedicated in learning the art. I'm not talking about stitching and laying up maple or poplar but custom exotic veneer, Ebonys, Tabu veneer etc.. Thats where the art comes in. Along with the preplanning and hand selecting the veneer and finding the right flitch for the whole project and making sure you order enough.
Then the sorting of the veneer, once you get the flitch you have to inspect and make sure the sequence is found and followed throughout the project.
Then you have the mapping side of it. You have to map out every single part being cutout and what sheet number it's coming from. very involved processes.
The glue mixing ration is also a very import process. We do all our layups in house. We've done full kitchen in Macasar Ebony (over $10,000 in very little sq veneer) and belive me you do NOT want mistakes.
Our equipment for laying up for your reference:
We have a dedicated veneer saw (trust me it makes a difference, I wouldn't even consider cutting flitches on the table saw). Similar to this one: https://www.hoefer-maschinen.com/products/veneer-and-panelsaw-fsp/?lang=en
We have a tabletop splicer. This investment is going to payoff in the long run if your getting serious about doing your own veneer layups. A hand stitcher is going to be very limited and not as productive. Pay once cry once.
and we have a 5x9 hot press. We step press materials that are longer.
if an outside shop was to come to us to do layups our price per sheet would be $400-$500 a sheet. That's how involved custom veneering is.
The processes it takes to layup a whole project is long but the results are stunning and second to none if done right.
By advice would be find out if your local supplier sells custom sequence veneer or find a shop that already does layups and order your sheets from them. We do this all the time for smaller shops. The investment to do it right is big and the learning curve takes time.
We have a full-blown custom veneer layup operation and still order sequence veneer from our supplier (walnuts and Rift white oak) just because we can't compete with the price they charge us per sheet.