Coconut wood for furniture

Coconut tree

 
Coconut is tropical palm tree that is much grows in coastal areas. This palm tree has an important meaning for the human environment. Almost all parts of this plant provide benefits for human life. The coconuts fruit is used for food. The young coconuts is a well known as beach drink, while the old fruit is used to make cooking oil and many other food ingredient. The coconut also could produce sweet liquid that is used to make brown sugar.
Besides the fruit, the coconut tree also has many benefits. Coconut wood is used to make house and buildings since many centuries ago. Today there are many gazebo are framed with coconut wood. Recently, the coconut wood is also used as substrate for furniture. The use of coconut wood in the woodworking industry is still not as popular as teak or mahogany,  but with the price of wood that is tend to higher, the uses of coconut wood is become an attractive alternative. With the proper treatment the coconut wood can provide a distinctive appearance, unique and natural impression in the furniture product. 

Coconut wood for furniture.

To be used as raw material in the woodworking industry, the coconut wood requires correct processing. Here are some things to be considered in the processing of coconut wood.

•   Wood treatment.

Coconut wood is susceptible for the insects attacked. In the past traditional people can preserve the wood by traditionally method. The coconut wood will high resistant to insect attack if it cut at the right season. But now when the woodworking industry requires the supply of raw materials every time, the method is difficult to be done.  Now we can use anti insect chemical to overcome the insect attack. The coconut wood should be soaked in a liquid insecticide before being dried and go for woodworking industry. The anti insect repellent also can be thinned with solvent and be applied to the dry wood.  

•  The drying of the wood

Coconut wood as well as other wood must be dry when processed in the woodworking industry. The coconut wood needs to fulfill the standard moisture content at the woodworking industry. For the furniture product, the wood moisture content about 10 % is recommended.
This wood is hardwood that requires careful drying process. The drying process with too hot air or too fast drying should be avoided since the high risk of the damage such as cracked or warped. The wood requires slow drying process with the oven temperature is maintained to be in the medium temperature. Many people still uses the traditional way by aerated the wood boards in an open space so as it achieves it maximum dryness. Nowadays with the availability of wood oven technology, we can dry the wood faster with oven.

•  Use the coconut wood which is age enough.

Coconut trees are planted mainly for its fruit. Therefore as long as he is still productive then the tree will not be cut. The young trees would be more advantageous to produce the fruit. Usually the trees are cut when they are already too old and not productive anymore in producing coconut fruit.  The fact is the wood from young trees will have a relatively low quality wood. The wood from young trees will higher shrinkage and more susceptible to defects and insect attack. Young coconut wood also has light color and relatively plain grain looked, which is not very interesting in the appearance.

• Finishing for coconut wood

The coconut tree is actually a monocotyl wood. It does not have a cambium as the dicotyle wood. As the monocotyle tree, even the  coconut tree wood has a hard and strong structure, the coconut wood does not have the grain as the wood from the dicotyle trees. The coconut wood has grain pattern from its regular patterns of lignin and cellulose are scattered along the wood plank. The wood grain pattern could be relatively monotonous, but with the distinctive dark color from its cellulose and the light color from its lignin, the wood can produce a distinctive and attractive appearance.

The finishing with transparent color is the most interesting choice. Finishing a solid color is almost never used in this timber. A NC, PU or varnish application with thin stain or no stain is good option finish for this wood. The wood has a rare but big size pores, therefore the filler with proper color is needed to make  close pores finish.

Office furniture

Office is a room which is become very important in the modern human’s life. Office is the place where people work and in the present life, then most people may spend most of their time to do activities in the office. The office room of course also requires furniture to support the activities inside. The office furniture will need different model and type from the furniture to another room. The office needs furniture that could support the working activities inside the room. The cabinets as place for files, shelves to place books and magazines and computer desk are the furniture that dominates in the office.

To produce a maximal result, the people in the office need to be supported with the pleasant atmosphere. The proper office furniture in the office room could be important supporting elements to produce maximum results in the job. Therefore the selection of office furniture should also be done carefully. The office room should be decorated appropriately so that a pleasant office atmosphere can be obtained and the better productivity of the people who work in it can be achieved.

Here are tips on choosing and managing the office furniture.

• Choose the proper furniture according to the office’s activity.

The furniture products are bought with the main purpose are to be used, therefore the function of the item should be considered in the selection of the furniture. The type, model and furniture quality must be fulfilled so the furniture can support the activities in the office. Activities of each office can vary depending on the type of work in it and of course this will determine the type of furniture needed. But in generally the office furniture products are cabinets, computer desks, working desk and chair. Many model are available, but mostly the simple form and model are most commonly available.

•  Choose furniture that is simple yet strong.

Furniture in an office usually will often be moved and re arranged for various reasons. The new jobs, new people will be followed with the change of the room arrangement. Since then, the office furniture should be movable, simple and strong enough. The furniture with simple shapes would be more easily lifted according to the changing in the room. The simple form furniture which also makes the cleaning process can be done more easily.

•   Choose the appropriate finishing.

The office space also requires an attractive atmosphere. Most people may spend most of their activating time in the office. They are work in the office for 8 hours and then go home for take a rest or sleep. The office room is important space in the modern human life. The color selection is a tool that can be used to make the office atmosphere to be more fresh and interesting. Choose furniture colors that can bring a comfortable situation. The muted and fresh color is a good choice. The medium bright colors can also be used to bring the atmosphere to be more lively and dynamic. Avoid colors that are too bright and too “heavy” since it will bring to the heavy and exhausting atmosphere.

The finishing for the office furniture should strong enough and safe for human health. The PU, AC, NC  or water based can be used since they are quite simple. The other finishing type such as: U.V. coatings or flat line finished are also lot of used since it suitable with the furniture form.

• The maintenance and care of the office furniture.

Maintenance of office furniture should be done well. Routine cleaning is an important thing to do. Many studies show that office furniture could be the place where lots of bacteria that interfere the human health were found. Routine cleaning is usually done by a specialized staff, but it is better if everyone who uses the furniture was also given responsibility for maintaining the cleanliness and neatness of their furniture. 

Hand scrapped floor finish.

the antique finish wood flooring

Hand scrapped finish floor is antique finish to wood parquet flooring. This finishing is the application of the antique finishing that is already very common for furniture finish at the wood flooring products. The antique wood floor finish in fact gets a positive response from the market. It is proven that some peoples also like the antique finishes for wood parquet flooring. And now finish this model has become more common in the wood floor finish.

Antique wood flooring parquet is a great choice when antique style room decoration is used. When the furniture used was antique furniture and the house is antique painted, the antique floor parquet is perfect comprehensiveness flooring. The antique flooring is also needed when a building with antique atmosphere is designed. The house which is designed to be looked old or natural looked wooden house will need the antique wood flooring product.

Same as with other antique finishing, the hand scrapped finish also requires physical distress and stain antiquing process. The physical distress, glaze application, stain highlights is needed though the finishing process is still being done on a flat line finishing by using UV coating as a clear coating. But of course, the antiquing process is relatively limited. The finishing that is too complex will be difficult to be made, because the limitation in the process, space, speed and material.

The surfaces of the floor pieces are relatively small and uniform has made distress choice become more limited. There is no advantage of the form factor as well as in the furniture finishing. The distressed of course have to be more uniform for all pieces because when they are installed they must match each other. One piece of flooring product should be considered as part of a “puzzle” that will be arranged when it is installed on the floor.

antique floor for antique decoration room

The same condition is with the stain antiquing. The finishing process at the wood floor will be done with UV coating on the flat line finishing system that is relatively more limited than with a spray finishing system. The simple dry brush, hand pad, highlights stain, spatter can be done, but antiquing that is too complex and takes long time will be difficult to be accommodated.

Several modifications to the flat line machine can be made to accommodate this antiquing process. The sponge roller is used for coating applications replacing the rubber roller. The use of sponge roller makes the application of stain, sealer and top coat can be performed on uneven surfaces with good results. Wide belt sander machine that is used to sand the sealer and top coat of course can not be used. The brush sander is used, since it more proper to sand the uneven surfaces. The brush sander will be able to reach the uneven parts and do sanding with less risk of cut trough. See our previous article: brush sander for wood finishing

Some development in the finishing material is also been made to accommodate the antique flooring finish. The water based glaze is made; it is the glaze that is in conjunction with UV coatings. The glaze may be used to create the impression of antique with dry brush, or wiping with water as a thinner which is the appropriate material for UV finish coating system. Some UV inhibitor can be added to the stain to provide better adhesion with the UV coating.

Hardboard

Hardboard is a manufactured wood material. It is made in tiny, thread like wood fibers. The name “ hardboard” is identifies a wide range of panel products that are literally “ hard” and which are made in the shape and form of board or panel and using wood as the essential ingredient.

Hardboard is member of the family of forest product; it is closely to the other members of the wood products family. Nearly 100 % wood fibers which have been rearranged during the manufacturing process of form the hard panels with their own set of separate and distinct characteristics. All wood products consist basically wood fibers. In the lumber and plywood, the wood fibers remain in the same position within the wood just the did in the growing tree.

Wood fibers are made of two main ingredients: cellulose and lignin. Cellulose is the wood fibers that give strength, while the lignin is the natural binder. Lignin is like cements to fill and hold the fibers together and makes wood solid. The wood in each species has its own characteristic as it grows. When the wood broken down into fiber form, the fibers in all special used for hardboard have similar qualities which make them ideal for use in the product.

For its weight the wood is one of the strongest materials known to man. The fibers in wood are fairly uniform size shape and other properties. Hardboard consists entirely of these fibers. Sometimes  small amount of chemicals are added to give certain characteristic. Solid wood as it comes from the tree contain a number of defect which are eliminated at the hardboard. For example: there is no knot and grain in the hardboard.  Hardboard has two basic differences with the other composition boards such as particle board of flake board. First hardboard is produced from the wood which has been reduced to its individual basic wood fibers. Second hardboard is the only board which uses lignin the natural cohesive substances found il all wood.  The lignin in hardboard makes natural bond, while other product are synthetic binder. 

How Hardboard is made.

The first step in manufacturing hardboard is chipping the wood into tiny pieces, five eights of an inch wide and one inch long. The chipper consists of revolving disc fitted with many sharp knives. As the wood touches the knives it is “chipped” into that size. The chips are sent by conveyor into the de-fibering machines which tear them apart and reduce them into fiber bundles. Or the chips are defiberized be steam pressure and exploded. Next the refinery machines take the fibers bundle and reduce them to individual fibers.

The next step is the mat forming process, which can be accomplished in the two ways. First is the water suspension method, in which the fibers are mixed in a tank of water and fed onto screen to form mat.  The second is the air suspension method in which the wood fibers are blown into large metal cone and allowed to settle down (into mat) like snowflakes.

The formed mat, consisting of thick blanket of loose fibers in approximately the same size as the final panel emerges from the mat–forming stage and they ready to be compressed. The individual panel size mats are conveyed into a giant hot press. The press operation is the similar with the placing hot iron on a fluffed-up damp towel until it is compressed into a thin sheet of fabric. The press develops of hundreds of pounds per square inch. The result is a thin, grain less, dense, uniformly textured, and strong and bone- dry coated panel mat.  Because the hardboard at these stage is so dry (much drier than the air in the normal condition), a small amount of water are added to the boards by placing them in the humidification chamber. This treatment is done to minimize the possibility of the hardboard warping.

Born of research and engineering, hardboard throughout its development has depended upon technical controls and improvements. For many years the basic effort was concentrated on producing a superior material which was ideal for the fabrication. In more recent years the development has more to fulfill the end uses. The development to the end product was created because of the hard competition among the companies.

Hardboard has some characteristics that make it desirable to the home construction and woodworking industry. They are: high uniformity, easy workability, low cost, non corrosive, good compatibility, excellent compatibility resistant to weathering, abrasion, denting and cracking. But however the hardboard is more the engineering substance, it does not have the natural uniqueness of the wood anymore. Hardboard in the market has to compete with other synthetic material such as: plastic, polyurethane, melamine and other resin material.

Rosewood finish

Rose wood is very beautiful and exotic wood. The rose wood has reddish brown color with black strip with very strong character grain pattern. This wood is an expensive wood, with the right finishing then he could produce a nice, luxury and interesting product. In this article we write about rosewood finish which is exploring its natural beauty. A transparent dark brown color finish with clean looked. This finish will give nice, elegant and luxury finish product.
A special hand pad is also done to enhance the beautiful the wood grain looked. 

rose wood furniture

Here is the finishing process step by step:

• The preparation of the unfinished wood.

The preparation of unfinished wood is one very important. The sanding process must be done right to make sure that the wood has smooth and even surface. The rosewood contains oil inside that could affect the finish. If the rosewood veneer is used, then the veneer gluing must be done properly to minimize the oil problem (see our previous article: rosewood veneer). If the solid wood is used then make sure that the wood is really dry.

Wipe the wood surface with rag dampened with acetone at the first finishing process. It will help to minimize the oil problem.

stain is hand padded on the wood

• Hand pad.

Had pad is used as first staining process to enhance and maximize the beauty of the grain. The black pad stain is applied by hand padding technique. Hand pad is done according to the grain pattern. Make a thin black line according to the grain pattern. The hand pad should be done properly to make vogue black lines that are well blend with the natural black strip from the rosewood. 

Do highlights to soften the black lines looked from the stain. Sand the black stain on the wood by sandpaper or steel wool to smoother the black stain. The black stain has to be looked natural as it comes from the wood. 

 the hand pad according to the wood grain

•  The stain application

To produce a darker color we require body stain application. Spray a dark black stain to the entire surface evenly. Then do the highlights on the stain. Use sandpaper or steel wool to wipe the stain according to the grain pattern. The proper highlight will enhance and maximize the grain pattern, and more alive finishing looked will be obtained. 

The stain application to make dark color

• Sealer application.

Sealer is layered when the staining is correctly done. For this finish the catalyzed clear coating is recommended. The PU or acid catalyzed sealer will reduce the problems from the oil from the wood. The catalyzed clear coating is also built stronger film layer that more proper for the clean looked finish.  In this finishing process we used Pu clear coating.
Apply wet coat of PU sealer by spray evenly to the entire surface. Let it dry and then sand the sealer. The PU sealer need long time to dry, it need at least 1 hour to make sure the sealer is dry. The sanding for the PU sealer need to be done properly. Use # 360 grade sandpaper to sand the sealer.
Repeat the sealer application and the sanding operation to produce enough film built. Usually we need two times or three time sealer application to produce even and smooth finish. 

 the rosewood finish is nice, elegant and expensive looked

• Application of top coat.

After sufficient film built is obtained then the next process is the top coat application. Check the color and the finishing quality; make sure the color is uniform and right already. We may need to add strain if necessary.
Check also the sanding quality; make sure there is no orange peel or deep scratches on the sealer. Use # 400 grade to sand the sealer before the top coat application.
Apply the semi gloss or high gloss PU top coat for this finish. Spray a layer of PU top coat evenly to the surface, let it dry. The result is a nice, elegant, and luxury wood furniture product.

Wax finish for wood flooring

 Flooring wax finish

Wax finish is still lot found until today. Although there are variety of modern finishing materials available, but the wax finish still has fans. Instead of be used for furniture, the wax is also many used for wood flooring. Wax for flooring is actually the same as for wood furniture; they work with the same principles and have particularly similar properties. according to the ingredient there are two types that are: carnouba wax and bee wax. Carnouba wax is produced from the  carnouba palm a palm tree from Brazil. Meanwhile, the bee wax is made from the honeycomb. At this time when there are some brand and wax producer are available, there are a lot of mixing and modifications have been made ​​to make the wax to be more flexible to meet the needs in the wood finishing industry.

Wax however, will not form a protective film layer as: coating, varnish or shellac. The wax work by saturate from inside the wood and give a thin protecting film on the surface. The wax must fill the pores and the grain completely to leave a protective harden layer behind the surface. Since the wood floor is saturated, then nothing more can be added and give the floor resistant to the staining liquids such as: coffee, wine, cola, etc. As soon as the wood hardened, it can bear quite a bit of water, but before coming to this the floor must be saturated and it can take some time. The saturated time could be very long time, it may take years, but now the saturation can be fasten by applying oil before the wax application.

The waxed wood floor is slippery surface make it has better resistant to the scratches, while mostly the scratches are almost invisible since the natural wood color appearance. The wax does not seal the wood as varnish, it still keep the wood breathing freely. The wax is also elastic; the wood floor can still undergo its normal setting without any crack appearing.

The wax can be repaired and renewed on the spot or entirely. A new layer of wax can be applied when there some spot or damage at the certain area. The wax for the entire surface is most often used to renew the finish. It can be done once every year to take care the flooring.

The wax application

The wax finish is used to make a transparent finish. The wax finish is only proper to the wood with good quality. The teak wood, merbau, walnut, hickory and other wood which have nice grain and color and have enough strength and hardness are the proper wood. The wax finish will enhance the natural beauty of the wood, but cannot make new color to the finish.

The proper wood preparation is needed. The wood has to be well sanded and properly dry. The wood surface has to be plain, smooth, free from oil, grease, wax or other chemical. We may need to select the wood to make sure wood flooring product are well blended and matching each other.  Too fine sandpaper sanding should be avoided. The  final sanding with #120 grade is recommended to keep the pores and grain open to let the impregnation oil can well penetrate into the pores and grains.

The oil is applied before the wax to saturate the wood pores and grain. The oil application manner varies from brand to brand. The oil can be applied by roll, brush or even with metal spatula. Apply the oil to the entire wood surface. After about 15–30 minutes, clean the oil excess with white pad. The excess of the oil will create irregular surface visually and affect the hardening by the wax.

Depending on the wood type, temperature, air humidity, the dying time of the oil is about 12 hours to 24 hours. Afterwards the wax can be applied. Wax applied in thin layer, evenly to the overall surface. The wood will only absorb the wax as he can do, too much wax will leave  thick and sticky layer of wax on the surface.

The wax that has been applied has to be polished out.  The wax applied on the wood surfaces will give a dull appearance. To make a shiny surface and clean then we have to polish the wax. We can polish by hand but it will take lot of energy and time. We can use a buffing machine (polishing machine) to polish the wax with more consistent result. 

The maintenance to the wax floor finish

A polished wood floor demands certain vigilance. It is advisable to regularly use a “swiffer” to remove the dust. The parquet need to be mopped with a wellwrung cloth. The damaged or scratched part may not contact with water. Everywhere there is damage must immediately be treated with additional floor wax. Depending on the intensity is walked upon the floor, it must be regularly retreated. For heavily threaded floor the treatment for the flooring may be done every month.

A polished wood floor has the advantage that tropical wear and tear can be touched up tropically. The frequency with which the floor needs a touch becomes less as the years go by. The better the wood  floor saturated, the smaller for additional wax treatment. 

Barecore

sengon wood for barecore

Barecore is intermediate product in the modern woodworking industry. Barecore is a wood panel made from pieces of wood that is glued and laminated together. Barecore in the woodworking industry is widely used to make panels for finish product such as: furniture, cabinets, flooring or other woods panel products. Barecore is an ideal core substrate for the plywood or wood veneer panel. Barecore is another alternative to replace the m.d.f. or particle board in the woodworking industry. Wood veneer from the exotic wood such as can be laid on the barecore in the one side or both side to make wood veneer plywood. The other material such as: decorative paper, vinyl or melamine also can be attached on the barecore panel to make engineered panel. If needed, the layer of slice wood also can be used to make wood panel with more wood looked appearance. Compared with the  m.d.f. or particle board the barecore has some advantages. It is stronger, light and more wood looked. With the right process and selection of wood materials the barecore is cheap and stable. The barecore with thicker size is also can be used to make wood component.

 
Sengon wood to make barecore 

Although barecore can be made from pieces of wood from the wastes from other woodworking industry, but most barecore factories produce its product with special wood. The Sengon wood is the most used to make barecore. Sengon which is inexpensive, light, and easy to be handled, is very ideal to make barecore. The sengon wood is has very short life time. With a suitable climate and the right plantation system, the timber can be harvested at 5 year age. The culvitation of the senogn wood is easy make the wood is abundant. Some areas in Indonesia such as: Magelang, Temanggung and Wonosobo are the well known as sourced of the sengon timber. In this area there are many sengon barecore or plywood and industries as well as the sengon plantation.

How to make barecore. 

The process to make barecore is very simple. The woodpieces in the similar sizes are laminated and glued together to form wide and big panels. The size of the barecore is usually the similar size with plywood, m.d.f. or particle board although any other special size are also can be produced.  As other woodworking product, the drying of the wood is very important. The wood pieces must be completely dry before laminated. The m.c. timber 8% is recomended. The gluing process and the environtment condition may bring the mc or the barecore product to about 10 %. But the higher moisture content is should be avoided since the risk of the wood movement. 

The drying process for the wood for barecore can be done quickly. The wood for barecore does not require very good quality such as wood for furniture industry or other woodworking industries. Some small defects such as cracked or warped that is not be accepted at the wood furniture industry is not problem in the barecore product. Barecore only requires small sizes wood pieces that are dry. If the sengon wood is used, then drying time can be done within 5 days or even less, very short time compared with the other wood-drying process for hardwood.
 

The gluing process are other important thing to be considered. The glue will emit the gas in its drying process. The gas emition will affect the barecore panel quality. Some states require certain VOC limitation for their product. And to fullfill that we need the proper glue. The gluing process can be done with hot press and cold press and both each provide its advantages and disadvantages.

The laminated wood panel needs the sanding process to make flat and even surface barecore panel. The wide belt sander sanding machine is used to do the sanding process. After a flat surface is obtained then the barecore should be stacked and wrapped to keep its moisture content. The barecore panel at the open surface will tend to absorb water from its surrounding air and risk to get problem since the wood swelling and shrinking.  See the our previous article: wood moisture on the plywood

Wood moisture content in the plywood

Plywood construction that consists several layers of thin wood is more stable than solid wood. The plywood surface is relatively closed to make the wood surface becomes more stable and less affected by changes in the outside humidity. However the plywood is highly depend to the conditions of moisture content of the wood pieces which form it. The change of moisture content of the constituent elements will continue to make changes in the shape and volume of the plywood and if the change is too large will result for the occurrence of surface defects such as checks, sunken joints, wavy surfaces and other defects.

When the plywood used laminated wood as its cores, then the variation at the wood pieces of the cores is potential to make the wood defects since the size changes of the wood. That is way the moisture content of the wood pieces in the construction of the plywood must be controlled to be as uniform as possible.

Most of the glue, except of the synthetic hot press glue are water based, mean that they contain a considerable amount of water. When the pieces of wood are glued together the moisture is absorbed from the glue to the wood, increase the total moisture content of the wood. Especially if the thin piece of wood such as veneer is glued, when the total absorbing surface is considered large amount to the total volume of the wood. 

The moisture content of the core stock at the time gluing is very important. The best authorities seem to agree that moisture content about 5 % is advisable and then the gluing process will add the moisture content. The moisture will distribute itself by conditioning treatment after the veneer has been laid off. The thinner the core stock the drier it should be at the time of laying cross banding and veneer.

Since the cross banding usually rather thin as compared to the core, it should be dried and treated as the sane ways as face veneer. As General rule, the moisture content should be about 5 % at the time of laying. The cross banding is usually spread with glue on both side. One side is being place against the core and the other against the face veneer. The wood will pick up considerable moisture from the gluing process, but this can be redistributed by mean of condition treatment after the panels has been built up.

Just before laying the veneer, it should be re dried to a moisture content of 4 to 6 percent. Some prefer higher M.C., this lessen to the liability of fancy, cross grained veneer to break in handling. Consequently such veneer is sometimes laid with moisture content of 8 to 10 %. The amount of shrinkage in the face veneer when it dries out will be greater under this condition than if the veneer were laid at moisture content of 5% – 6 %. If the veneer was too fragile to be handled at lower moisture content it is almost certain not too be strong enough to resist the greater tendency to shrink, and checking of the face veneer will probably result causing check and cracks in the finish.

The use of moist veneer in building the panels also results in much more warping than is obtained when the dry veneer is used. Where there is a manufacturing advantage in using moist veneer, this increased warp and liability to checking must be taken into consideration as disadvantage which will partially or entirely offset the gain from the from using moist veneer. The moisture content of the back veneer should be as the same with the face veneer. Otherwise one will shrink more than the other upon drying the glue up work and may result in warping.

The pressure should be applied to the panels as quickly as the veneer is laid to prevent the thin veneer to expanding too much. The incorrect position of the veneer when held by glue will result in the formation of check as the panel dry out.

The panels should be left in the retainers until the glue is fully dry. As the panels are removed from the retainer, they should be piled on special trucks with stick of exactly uniform width and thickness between the panels. Each stick should be placed directly above the one below to ensure the plywood drying is straight. 

It is evident that the built up panels must also be given a conditioning treatment after gluing to bring the moisture content to the right point