Know Your Woods
India is blessed with a vast number of tree species, most of which are deciduous and evergreen. Alpine forests and trees belonging to arid regions are also present. These trees are used extensively to manufacture wooden handicrafts. Wooden handicrafts of India are renowned for beauty, durability and utility. Wooden handicrafts include furniture, utensils, boxes, beads, finely carved figurines, accessories etc. Find below some generic information on commonly used wood types for our exclusive collections:
Palm Wood
Coconut timber is a hardwood-substitute from coconut palm trees. It is referred to in the Philippines as Coconut Lumber, or Coco Lumber. It is a new timber resource that comes from plantation crops and offers an alternative to rainforest timber.
Palm wood is a finished material produced by Pacific Green from coconut timber which is stable across range of climates.
Coconut timber has many applications as both a structural and interior design material. The harder, high-density timber is suitable for general structural purposes such as pillars, trusses, rafting, furniture, window and doorframes, floors, decking and floor joists. Medium density coconut timber can be used for walls, ceiling joists and horizontal studs. Low density coconut timber is used in non-load bearing applications like wood panelling, internal trim and ceilings, as well as homewares.
Maple Wood
Most Maples are trees growing to 10–45 metres (30–145 ft) in height. Others are shrubs less than 10 metres tall with a number of small trunks originating at ground level. Most species are deciduous, but a few in southern Asia and the Mediterranean region are evergreen. Most are shade-tolerant when young, and are often late-successional in ecology; many of the root systems are typically dense and fibrous.
Box Wood
They are slow-growing evergreen shrubs and small trees, growing to 2-12 m (rarely 15 m) tall. The leaves are opposite, rounded to lanceolate, and leathery; they are small in most species, typically 1.5-5 cm long and 0.3-2.5 cm broad, but up to 11 cm long and 5 cm broad in B. macrocarpa. The flowers are small and yellow-green, monoecious with both sexes present on a plant.
Boxes are commonly used for hedges and topiary. Owing to the relatively high density of the wood (it is one of the few woods that is denser than water), boxwood is often used for chess pieces. Wooden chess sets almost always use boxwood for the white pieces and commonly use stained ("ebonized") boxwood for the black pieces, in lieu of ebony[1]. Boxwood is also used for high quality violin and viola fittings (pegs and tailpiece), and formerly for wooden combs. The extremely fine end-grain of box makes it suitable for woodblock printing.
Rose Wood
Indian Rosewwod is a erect deciduous tree. It grows to the height of 25 meter and 2-3 meter in diameter. It has leathery leaves which are up to 15 cm long. The flowers are whitish pink in colour. Its crown is oval in shape. The fruit is brown and pod like in shape. The fruit is dry and hard. The sapwood is white to pale brown in colour and the heartwood is golden to dark brown in colour.
It is the important fuel wood and is also used for shade and shelter. Its wood is used for the making furniture, doors, windows, ship floors, plywood, skis, musical instruments, carvings etc. Because of durability Rosewood is often used in the martial art weaponary, particulary as the shaft of spears and in the gun staves. Its oil is used in Perfumes.
Ebony Wood
Ebony wood is an exotic wood probably most known for its use as fingerboards and keys for various musical instruments. In second place ebony wood, in its various species is the wood of choice for many decorative turners, both the commercial pool cue turner and you & I doing it in the basement. Its great for pens, bottle stoppers, knife handles and jewelry boxes.
The trees today are few and far between, and of a much smaller size then 20 year ago, ... found on the Asian, Indian and African continent. They can grow to 50' in height & 1 1/2' around, but you're talking about a tree over 100 years old.
The wood is very dense thus no fillers are necessary. It finishes to a beautiful sheen, with limited effort... that being said I do have one customer that inserts ebony into a vacuum chamber to stabilize it in all his knife making adventures.
Copyright © 2010 by ritiinternational.com, All rights reserved
Developed by: Cynosure Technology Solutions