The trembesi wood for furniture

Trembesi tree (Albizia saman) is much cultivated throughout the tropical area. It grows best in the lowlands from sea level to 500 m (1000 ft) with rainfall 600–3000 mm (24–120 in). The tree can fast grow and become big timber in the proper climate. It usually reaches 15–25 m height with a wide canopy leaf and big diameter log. In Indonesia, the tree is lot planted at the road as shade tree for reforestation. The saman tree is chosen to green the land since it is fast-growing and a good absorber for CO2 from the air. In Indonesia, the action of planting the trembesi tree is encouraged in many areas. The wood is lot available in Indonesia by many names, such as: tamarind, munggur, ki hujan, trembesi, meh, etc.

trembesi wood panel

Since its availability, some furniture manufacturers use the trembesi wood to make furniture. It is quite cheap and easy to be handled in the woodworking industry. It can be used to make indoor furniture in combination with veneer or other wood species. The wood has strong grain character with shallow pores and grain texture; with the proper finishing, it can produce an attractive appearance. This wood has a medium hardness, making it relatively easily machined, drilled, or sanded in the woodworking process. Some furniture manufacturers also use this wood for outdoor furniture, with a quite good result.

But the wood is always unique; each type of wood has special character that is different from the other. The trembesi as a product from trees also has special characteristics that need to be well anticipated to get them maximum benefit.

trembesi solid wood furniture

There are some things need to be considered in the process of tamarind wood.

• The insect attacked.

The tamarind wood has a risk of getting insect attacked. Although the risk of insect attack is not as high as the mahogany or mango wood, it is still recommended to do chemical treatment to prevent the insect problem. The chemical treatment at the planks before it dried in the kiln dry oven. or at the dry sawn timber will minimize the insect problem in the future.

• The volume shrinkage.

The trembesi wood has high volume shrinkage from the wet to the dry wood. It has high risk for rupture and bending. Therefore he must be dried properly; the drying process cannot be too fast since the risk of damaged and broken wood. After the wood is dry, it needs to be layered with the proper finishing layer to minimize the risk of wood movement. The finishing layer will coat the wood, make it stable, and minimize the wood movement.

trembesi finish panel

• The finishing for trembesi.

The trembesi wood contains some oils inside. The oil is not as much as teak wood oil, but it could interfere the finished look. To minimize the oil problem, we need to dry the wood at the standard m.c. should be and choose the proper finishing color. The antique brown transparent finishing color is the best choice for this wood. The wood has nice grain patterns that can be maximized with the transparent color. It has the white color base at the sap wood and brown to the dark brown at the heart wood. The finishing with dark brown color is the easiest to be achieved. If the light color  finish is needed, then we may need to bleach the dark wood.

The finishing with solid color can also be generated, but we must be aware of the oil inside the wood. We need to apply the oil block (insulator) at the first step to prevent the oil from coming true and ruining the finish.