Bayview Furniture

How Furniture Is Made

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A reference to all of the most common furniture terms

Much of our furniture is hand-crafted from fine quality woods, and often incorporates other quality construction materials such as aluminum and steel, glass, plastic, leather, and marble. Since wood is the main component, we'll focus on how it's used to make fine quality furniture.

TYPES OF WOOD Wood Types

There are many types of wood available for furniture manufacturing, from the common to the exotic. However, some types of wood make more practical furnishings than other types.
For this reason, you should take the specific type of wood for your furniture construction into heavy consideration.
In addition to the difference in color and grain, the durability and stability of specific types of wood should play a role in the choice of wood for your furniture.
Wood is typically broken down into two categories: soft woods and hard woods. Overall, hardwoods are used more for furniture building, although softwoods are becoming quite popular due to their typical light colors and delicate textures.

Hardwood
The term refers to all leaf-bearing trees rather than any degree of hardness. Those most often used in furniture construction include ash, birch, butternut, cherry, gum, mahogany, maple, oak, pecan, rosewood, teak, walnut and yellow poplar. Depending on the specific type of look you want from your furniture, you should consider the specific offerings of each type of wood.
Maple is an incredibly durable wood and often light in color. Some types of maple, including “bird’s eye” maple have unique grains that can create a fascinating pattern in the surface of your furniture.
Although durable, maple needs proper care on a regular basis to keep the wood from warping.
Oak is one of the most popular types of wood used for furniture. This material has been used for hundreds of years and those furnishings are still going strong.
Capable of withstanding an enormous amount of wear and tear, oak has a very specific grain that can only be identified with the wood.
Sometimes cut in a particular fashion known as quarter-sawn, oak is used in a wide variety of furniture styles.
Cherry is again becoming quite popular and ranges from a rich dark hue to a lighter, softer shade.
More durable and less expensive than mahogany, consider choosing cherry if you want your furniture to have a red appearance. The grain of cherry is delicate and lovely as well, making it often used for smaller, more dainty pieces of furniture.
Another type of hardwood typically used in furniture manufacturing is teak.
This wood is extremely durable when it comes to outdoor elements and is often found in outdoor settings, including for outdoor furniture and even used on boats.
With a beautiful grain and rich fragrance, teak ages gracefully over time, making it the perfect option for those outdoor spaces. Its oily nature makes it water and insect resistant.

Softwood
Softwoods include trees with needles or foliage that remains green year round. These include cedar, fir, pine, and spruce. Pine is typically a lighter weight, less expensive material that is often used as a base. Over this base, thin veneers of other types of wood are applied.
This allows furniture companies to cut down on costs while also cutting down on their use of exotic types of wood to better help the environment.
Pine is a softer wood and quite easy to work with, so it is preferred by many woodworkers. One great thing about pine is that the wood is much less susceptible to the negative affects of humidity than other types of wood.
Cedar, widely known for its sweet, spicy smell, is another type of softwood used in furniture making. Because of the aroma of the Cedar, it is used extensively in the construction of chests and closets. This is known to keep moths and insects away.

HOW THE WOOD IS USED

Woods for Frame Construction
Ash, gum and yellow poplar are often used in frame construction and other interior areas for their strength, stability and shock absorption qualities.

Woods for Exterior Surface
Cabinet woods are those used on exterior surfaces and must be carefully worked, carved, finished and polished. Cabinet woods include birch, cherry, mahogany, maple, oak, pecan and walnut.

Wood Preparation
Wood contains natural moisture which accounts for as much as one-third of the total weight of lumber when it is first received. The curing of lumber requires tremendous care and expertise.

The wood is air dried three to six months, depending on the thickness of the wood. It is then placed in a dry kiln for two to eight weeks. A moisture content of six to eight percent assures the stability of the finished furniture, in either humid or desert climates.

After the lumber is properly dried, it is planed and cut to various widths and lengths and then matched for color. Even within the same tree, color varies greatly.

SOLID VS. VENEERED WOOD CONSTRUCTION
The word "solid" as used in the furniture industry may be confusing because both types - solid and veneered - are of solid wood construction.

Solid Wood Furniture
Solid is used to describe furniture with drawer fronts, tops, panels and other like surfaces made of whole wood, or of one piece, without plies of veneer.

Solid wood surfaces are composed of narrow solid wood planks, bonded permanently together, side by side. These planks serve to prevent splitting and warping when temperatures change and when the wood naturally expands and contracts. They also provide decorative variation.

Veneered Wood Furniture
In veneer construction, layers of woods are permanently bonded to a center core on a solid wood frame. Veneering permits matching and repeating grain patterns that are impossible in solid lumber.

Veneering is used in about 80 percent of wood furniture, from the least to the most expensive, because of its strength and added versatility.