Meranti wood

Meranti (shorea) wood  is one of the hardwoods that are widely available in Southeast Asia. There about 70 species including to the family Dipterocarpaceae are traded in the name of Meranti wood. The Meranti wood is widely available in Indonesia tropical forests in Sumatra and Kalimantan, and some in Maluku. The success of Indonesian government to stop the illegal logging is making the country to become the largest suppliers of this wood. The other sources are Malaysia, Thailand and Philippine.
The Meranti wood has many advantages properties to be utilized in the woodworking industry. Wood has a good ability to be processed by machines, sanded, drilled and screwed.  He has medium hardness, easy to be handled, machined and processed with reasonable price. 

Physical properties can be seen in the table below:
 
Average Dried Weight     ( MC 12%)        : 44 lbs/ft3 (710 kg/m3)
Specific Gravity   (12% MC)                     : 0.55   -   0 .71
Janka Hardness                                        : 840 lbf (3.730 N)
Modulus of Rupture                                  : 11.800 lbf/in2 (81.4 MPa)
Elastic Modulus                                         : 1,675,000 lbf/in2 (11:55 GPa)
Crushing Strength                                      : 6.840 lbf/in2 (47.1 MPa)
Shrinkage  (from wet to MC 12%)            : Radial: 3.8% Tangential: 7.9%, Volumetric: 13.3%, 
                                                                    T / R Ratio: 2.1
data is taken from : http://www.wood-database.com/

The uses of Meranti wood.

The wood is used in the woodworking industry for various purposes. It can be logged, sawn and sliced to any sizes. The wood can be used to make: house frame, flooring, decking, ceiling, walls, doors, windows, or furniture. The meranti wood also can be sliced to make ​​veneer or plywood. His grain character may be not as beauty as the teak or mahogany wood but it is still quite good to make the “wood looked” panel. The meranti veneer is used as face panel for the sengon plywood or block board with better appearance then the sengon plywood. 

The uses of meranti wood in the furniture manufacturing industry is also quite lot. Many people use this wood to replace the mahogany wood. Although it does not have the beauty grain as the mahogany wood, but the hardness, strength, structure and basic colors are relatively similar. With the cheaper price and its high availability, then the Meranti wood is good choice to make furniture. 

meranti wood for flooring  

Treatment for Meranti wood.

As the wood product, the Meranti has to be dried before it can be used in the woodworking industry. Overall the drying can be done fairly easily, but the white and yellow Meranti has high risk to get  fungal attack, then it needs to be treated with the anti fungal chemical. The wood has risk to get insect attacked; the preservation with anti insect chemical is recommended to preserve the wood

Finishing for meranti wood. 

Finishing is quite important for this wood, especially when the decoration value is needed by the product. The wood does not have strong grain character as teak, mahogany or other premium wood, but with proper finishing it still can serve interesting appearance. The wood can absorb any finishing material without any problem. It can be finished in any color with any finishing material. The transparent colors are the good choice for furniture products, doors, windows or flooring with the coating should be selected according to the product function. The wood also has quite good porosity properties; he can accept the wood stain without any risk of blotchy color, as long as we do god sanding preparation.

Finishing with solid colors can also be applied to the wood with a relatively easy process. With its soft grain texture structure and small pores, this wood can be coated with paint without many problems. However, some species of this timber has resin that can exit and could disturbing the finishing color, therefore, for the solid colors, it is recommended to use the catalyzed coating as first sealer to seal the wood.