Fungi problem since the wet wood.

Wood is the still the main raw material for furniture. The wood must be dried first before being used in a process in a furniture manufacturer or other woodworking industries. The standard maximum moisture content allowed is usually about 12%. It is a standard that should have been known by every people who deal with the woodworking industry. However the fact is sometime we still find the wood MC problem in the woodworking industry. There are many reasons such as: not enough time, the difficulty to find the raw materials, the weather conditions, etc. But there should be no excuse the wood has to be dry before it is used in the woodworking process.

The fungi problem in the wood furniture

Here is a story about the mold problems in the furniture product since of the wet wood.

One day there was a furniture factory who came to our office bringing a color panel. He asked us to develop new color panel to match with his color panel. The color is a blackish brown color. The panel was made from walnut wood, but he asked us to match it with mahogany wood. He got a new buyer that want to developed new collection with this color.
Then we worked on the color matching, and within a few days the color matching process can be completed. The furniture factory owner brought our color panel and sent to his buyer. His buyer then approved his finishing color, and then he asked for some finish samples product. A few days later, the furniture factory sent some samples to our lab to be finished. There were several benches and tables. They were very simple but very unique product. The table was made from one large piece of wood with curve shape. There are several sizes and some different form of curve. The benches were made from three pieces wood panel board that assembled together.
Then we started doing the finishing process on the samples. We completed our finishing process in 2 days. A nice and attractive looked furniture collection. We called the factory to let him know that their samples were finished. But he did not immediately take the samples; he asked us to keep them in our office for few more days. He was going to take them within 1-2 weeks.
We then put these items in the storage room and then we do our daily work. But then someone accidentally saw the product samples and found something surprising. There some strange white color appeared on the sample products. Then we looked more closely and make observations to the product. We found that the sample was overgrown by fungi. The fungi was very much and clearly visible, grew on the object through the finishing layer. The fungi were only found in the tables. There no fungi appeared in the bench.

Then we called the furniture factory to discuss about this phenomenon.  We together observed the samples and discussed about this problem. And we found that the wood to make the tables were still wet. When we checked the wood, the MC was around 25%. While the bench wood has better wood, his MC was around 12-15%, It was still a bit high but was not as high as the table.
The furniture factory owner then admitted that the product had too high MC. He said that he had a difficulty to dry the thick and big wood on the tables. Yes it was, it is required long drying process to kiln the big size and thick wood.  

The samples should be sent immediately, but since the fungi problem then he had to delay the shipment until they had bee fixed.
We stripped of the finishing layer on the tables. The finishing we used was NC type, so we can wash the finish quite ease. We washed the finish with acetone until all the finish was removed and cleaned. Then we sent them to the factory to be dried. It took about 2 week to kiln the wood.

When we were sure that the wood was dry, then we did the refinishing process on the goods.

After the finishing process was completed we waited the products for a few days to ensure that there no more problem. After waited for about 1 week there was no fungus growing. Therefore, we feel confident to ship the products. And then the products were accepted by his buyer.  But unfortunately the product was not get a good response from the market, so there was no more order on the items.

The story is an experience that show how important is the wood MC.  The uses of wet wood is having a high risk of problems. we always must ensure that the wood finish is dry before do the finishing process.