Laminated wood for furniture.

Wood is still consider to be the main raw material for furniture until today.  There could be many other materials are also used to make furniture, but they can never replace the wood. Although there may big issues about the wood preservation and the environment, but it will not stop the woodworking industry instead of reorganize it. The woodworking industry today should be in balance with the wood preservation. This situation however make the wood become more expensive. The woodworking industries such as the furniture factory should be more efficient in using the wood. Most of furniture factories choose to use the wood product such as: plywood, M.D.F., particle board and veneer to replace the solid wood. But some furniture factories still keep using solid wood. They use the laminated wood to solve the problem about the long and wide surface panels. 

The development of the wood adhesives technology now has allowed the furniture factory to have the high ability to dealing with the solid wood panel in big size.
The laminated wood has several advantages compared with the plywood or veneered panel. The laminated wood is stronger and more durable and its product value will keep increasing by the time. The solid wood furniture can be kept and can sell as an antique in the future. The solid wood is also strong enough to be used as outdoor furniture, at which the veneer can not.

laminated wood panel

 Even so, of course, the laminated wood must be well trimmed to obtain the maximum result. 

Here are the things that must be considered in the processing of laminated wood.

• Follow the right procedure of gluing

The laminated process mainly are: the wood surface preparation, the glue application and the glue solidification. To meet the optimum result, each process must be done properly. How each processes done are depend on the type of wood being laminated and the glue used. Make sure that we understand the glue type and follow the technical data of the chemical such: as the drying time, the pressure, the working temperature,etc.

While to do the proper surface preparation we need to understanding of the wood properties. The woods may have different physically properties according to their type. They need to be treated differently according to their properties.

• Use the proper glue

The adhesive industry currently provides many adhesives products with various types. Each of them are designed to meet the special needs of the woodworking industry. We need to find the most proper glue according to the product requirement. For example, the white glue is most properly used for the indoor finished furniture. While for outdoor furniture we should use a stronger glue, such as the epoxy or P.U. which can withstand the outside weather. The glue type also may different according to the wood type. Some glue are work better for some type of wood, while the other are work well with other wood. Discuss with the glue supplier to find the most suit glue type according with the product.

• Control the moisture content of the wood.

The typical of wood character is that its moisture content that will always adjust to its environment humidity. Meanwhile, every change of wood moisture content will lead the wood movement. This phenomenon need to be anticipated to avoid the wood construction problem such as: crack, split, uneven, curved, etc.

To minimize the wood movement problem we need to unified the wood pieces with similar M.C., when laminating the wood. We need to check the M.C. of each pieces make sure that all the pieces are already follow the standard before glue and laminate them. 

The wood movement is varied and depends on the type and physical properties of wood. But generally the the standard for furniture factory for the M.C. is less then 12%, while the difference between the wood pieces should not exceed 1%.

• Do the matching color and grain of the wood pieces.

Wood is a natural product that has varied properties. The basic color, grain and pores patterns and porosity are subject of variation. The variation if come too far will significantly affect the appearance of the final product. The finishing process may help to result a more uniform product. But if the difference is too contrast, the finishing process may not be able to overcome the differences. In the dark color we can apply the heavy stain to cover and camouflage the wood color variation. But for product with natural or light color, the wood variation will visibly seem. Since this reason, it is better if we try to do the wood matching process in the lamination process. It may a rather difficult work, since it will very difficult to recognize the wood appearance of raw wood. But we have to do it as far as possible, since it will be a big help to next the furniture-making processes.