Cambia (Heat Treated) wood for furniture – Pros and Cons
hotdogman
| Posted in General Discussion on
I am considering trying some heat treated Ash for a desk I want to build. I want to use it to contrast with Curley Maple. I have read that the heat treatment crystalizes the sugars and starches in the wood and makes it among other things less likely to absorb moisture and also more brittle than regular KD furniture grade lumber. Has anyone had experience working with heat treated lumber? How well does it plane, sand, etc. Does it glue up well or is it a challenge? What are the pros and cons of using cambia processed wood for furniture construction?
Replies
Check out issue 311. Fairly extensive coverage of drying wood including the process you are referring to. Written by a lumberyard professional
Haven't used it myself but it's being used by some some of the finest guitar builders so my guess is that gluing, sanding, and finishing etc. is not a problem. Dana Bourgeois stated that you end up with a brand new 50 year old guitar which, for guitars,is a good thing.
I've done it at a small scale. Cherry comes out almost black and is harder than when it started. White oak also goes dark, but not bkack. I used it for fretboards and bridges on instruments. The parts were 90% done when I cooked them so no experience planing. Cutting test blocks proved that the treatment was throughout the wood if left long enough. I glued it with both TB2 and epoxt without issues.
Thanks for the helpful responses.
Is Cambia a product name or the proper term for torrefied wood? I can't get a straight answer on the web due to the interwebs being raped by global marketing and tracking.
Cambia may be a commercial name, not sure. It is sold by Northland Forest Products which is an international company that happens to have a retail outlet nearby.
Mj, you heated it?
This stuff is quite different, it's heated at very high temperatures, hot enough I believe for it to actually catch fire but in a low oxygen environment so that it can't burn. So high tech shou ishi ban.
"Torrefied" or thermally modified wood are the terms I've heard it referred to. Everything that can be eaten by a bug, attract mold or rot is gone. Sounds kind of like a fossil of wood to me. They say it artificially "ages" wood but I think its not at all the same. I have some things ,like antique guitars, that left unprotected would still make a nice meal for a termite. The wood is structurally weakened from the process so you wouldn't use it to frame a house with but siding and decking seems to be what most of it seems to be marketed for. The up side for the industry is that wood ( trees) that had previously had little commercial value now do. The downside is that forests or trees that were previously left alone can now be devastated like everything else. I have seen poplar marketed as decking. Non torrified poplar for a deck would show signs of deterioration in ,what, about a week?! Pawlonia,also called kiri seems to be the new kid on the block...popular for surfboards..
I don't think you have it right. The company nearby Northland Forest Products that produces Cambia sells it in 8/4 down to 4/4. I don't think 8/4 is meant to be used for decking and siding unless you want to do a lot of resawing. So do you actually have any actual experience with heat treated wood used to construct furniture?
I heated it in a household oven to 350/400° for a couple hours as I recall. I packaged it in aluminum foil with the edges folded several times and pressed to form a seal. Not zero-atmosphere, a small bit of smoke, and it worked.
Good old boy ,Frank Wakefield, baked his Loar signed Gibson mandolin in the oven! Said it "improved the sound". This is a quite rare and coveted $200 k + instrument! He also painted it -- paint!-- red!