Oil problem on teak wood furniture.

Have you ever met the problem of oil coming out of the wood or veneer? Some types of wood such as rosewood, teak, and pine contain oil therein. The oil will come out and interrupt the  finishing result. Teak is one type of wood has very strong oil inside. The oil in the teak wood is very strong and sometime ruins the finishing on it. Here is my experience with teak oil from the teak wood. Please read this story and feel the experience.

One day I was called by a furniture factory to make some color on the teak wood. He sent some teak wood panels to our office. He asked me to make some color panels to be shown to his buyer. The factory was located in Semarang and exports its products to England. After few years sending the unfinished product, he wanted to try sending the finished furniture product. He was going to make some finished product to his buyer and called us to make color finish to his furniture. I received the panels and made two color to him.  One panel was dark brown  and another panel color was light brown, both are transparent finish. I sent those two panels to the factory to be reviewed.

The furniture factory was immediately approved the color that I made and he chosen a color that was a transparent light brown color to be used in his furniture product. He asked us to finish some sample products.

Then we went to the factory to do finishing process on some goods. There were 2 chairs and a small table that were ready to be finished. We finished the samples in 2 days. And then they were sent to England to be reviewed his buyer. It was taken about 1 month by the sample to arrived in England.

About 1 month later we got word that our samples look nice and well liked. Since that his buyer asked for more finished product. He sent some new color panels to be matched and used as a color guide to some other products.
The factory then called us to do the finishing process some more products. There were about 200 products that need to be finished.  All were made of teak wood. There were three colors we need to do. One color is the light brown transparent color we had already made; the other two were new finished. One id dark brown and the other is wash white finish. They all  are done in NC finished. Finally we finished the process in about 1 week. In the end we could complete the project on schedule. All products were sent in accordance with the schedule.

That project was our regular works as a service company, so after we finished that project then we started to forget it and went through on other activities. Until then we got massage that there was finishing problem on the furniture we sent. There was oil that came out and damaged the finish.

I went to the factory to meet with the owner to discuss about this problem. We observed the furniture we sent and check the finished we did. We reviewed the color panels that we finished together with product samples. And in fact was true, in our color panel with white wash finish there was oil coming out from the grains. The yellow brownish color oil was obviously looked and very disturbing the appearance of the finishing. The oil actually was also come true from other brown color finish. But since the finish was transparent brown then it was not so obviously and was not disturbing the finishing looked.

It matched with the information we got from our buyer. Then we took the conclusion that the teak oil was out and disrupt the performance in the white wash color. Fortunately, the product were prepared for exhibition, finally the sample with white color wash was not exhibited and replaced with another product.

Since this incident I am always careful in do finishing on the teak wood and some other oily wood. I already did some research about the teak oil, but until now I still prefer to not finish the teak wood and even teak veneer in the finish color at which has high risk of oil problem.  The solid color or wash color finish especially the white color is very high risk to get oil problems. Some finishing material supplier already makes a special material called oil block to block and stops the teak oil. But as my experience the materials still cannot guarantee that it can 100% omit the oil problem. If there any customer come to me and asking for solid color on teak wood I always suggest him to make another color or use another wood instead of teak wood.

In my opinion, the teak wood should nod be finished in solid color.  Solid color finish for teak wood instead of the high risk of the oil problem is also will kill the nice, beauty and natural grain looked. The teak wood is also too expensive to be finished in solid color, since there are many other wood can substitute the teak wood with less risk. 
The same thing with the wash finish for teak wood.  The wash finish may  give a nice finish, since it will enhance the beauty the teak wood grain and pores, but since its oil risk it also should be  avoided. 

 

TEAK OIL - SEALER, NATURAL, GALLON