In this article, I will shortly try to tell you about general knowledge about wood. I will write about few things that architects, designers or any other person, who is working with wood will find useful to read it. I will explain why it is important to use wood in a right way and if you want to know more about the wood I will try to show you an easy and relatively short way to do it.
In this short articles, I will mainly speak about a wood used in the design industry and furniture making.
Solid wood:
Wood comes from tree trunks and depending on the way the logs are cut, the wood will show a different texture and figure and it will tend to change its volume and size in a different way. Wood can be sourced directly from a lumber yard, from wood stores, you can recycle it or if you are able and know how to do it you can cut it by yourself.
In some cases, wood is used just after you cut it, like some kind of chairs. This is called “green woodworking”.
In my creations, I use mainly solid wood. Solid wood dimensions change with variations in environmental humidity and temperature. Some type of wood influenced by environmental moisture more than other, and there is almost anything you can do to avoid it. Any cabinet maker knows this and knows how to deal with it when creating any piece of furniture.
99% of the time wood is used after being dried in a natural or artificial way. There are many reasons why you have to dry wood and the for furniture uses it should be pretty dry. Wood is measured by a percentage of interior moisture content. As a reference, wood for interior furniture will have a moisture content between 15% and 10%, depending on many different factors, mainly, regarding to, the changes of your local and seasonal weather conditions.
Buying solid wood for fine furniture requires a deep knowledge of the wood itself and in some cases also some defects can be used as an accent for a certain, special object.
Veneer:
Veneer can have a different type of cuts and different figures of the grain. Wood veneer is basically a very thin piece of solid wood and when creating a fine furniture it requires a deep knowledge of different materials and techniques. It can be 4mm thick to 0,6 mm or sometimes even less. You can find them in different dimensions, and also it can be as big as 1,2 x 2,5 m or even bigger.
Wood veneers are applied as a “skin” over different materials. In many panels, veneers are already glued on the surface of certain material. The veneer needs to be superficially treated, in order to protect it. Today many tables and furniture is made using veneer instead of solid wood. In this way, the furniture looks like wood and is more stable, cheaper, but if damaged is very difficult to repair.
Almost every kind of solid wood can be found as the wood veneer. Veneer can be made using solid wood or other materials like melamine (a colored sheet is treated with this resin and becomes very hard and wear resistant.
A lot of different materials can be called veneer. They will be glued over a standard board surface in order to obtain special finishes mainly used for kitchen, walls or paneling.
Engineered wood — boards:
Sometimes when I make prototypes or when I create simple structures that are mainly squared or that should have dimensional stability, I usually choose engineered wood. These boards are the ones that the furniture industry uses the more,
They have standard dimensions and standard regulations, regarding to structure, glues, finishes, thickness and they can be made for interior or exterior use. These panels are perfectly flat, some of them have surfaces that are ready to apply a finish and, in other cases the surface is already finished. Some boards have both sides usable, some have only one good size and others are used just as a structure in which the surface will be finished later with a wide range of products of your choice.
Some panels are very rigid and others and bendable, and in some cases inside the panels you find what is called “honeycomb” (between two layers of wood they glue an interior structure made of a light material. The geometrical shape of this glued structure remembers a honeycomb). These panels are used when you need rigidity but low weight, like in some doors.
These panels can be made in different ways and some of them are:
Plywood: made of crossed layers of veneers glued together, can be used for an interior, exterior or marine grade. Very good resistance to loads. The exterior surface can have a first-grade veneer quality
MDF (medium density fiberboard): generally used as support for veneers. Their surface can also be finished with other products. Very dense and smooth. Poor resistance to moisture unless indicated by the producer.
OSB (oriented strand board), are wood particles glued and pressed together. Used mainly in walls, floors and roof decking. Sometimes used in furniture making. and it’s cheaper than plywood. Moisture resistant. Surface not uniform, neither smooth.
Chipboard or particle board: made of small wooden chips pressed and glued together. It is cheaper and heavier than other boards. It is weak and it has not structural use. Very sensitive to moisture. Some types are glued with moisture resistant glues.
Solid wood panels: made from boards that are glued together. Can be made from different type of wood (hardwood or softwood). They are made of pine, oak, beech, etc. These panels are used and behave like solid wood. The advantage is that they are flat and the finish surface is smooth.
Other engineered boards: they can be made using the previous boards, but with different finishes like melamine, a very hard resin that is applied in a veneer sheet and glued on the surface of a board. It can be made in almost any color and sometimes the surface looks like wood veneer.
