Thermally modified wood for outdoor furniture
johngruss
| Posted in General Discussion on
Is anybody using thermally modified wood for outdoor furniture? I see lots of applications for siding, decks and occasionally a bench. I will be making an outdoor dinning table on a covered deck and curious about this material. It looks good and is a little different than traditional materials. Any body with experience using this material for a table with a solid glued panel for the top?
Replies
The modifying process or processes, because there are several different methods used ,they all (I think) super heat the wood in a low oxygen environment. It makes the wood more resistant to fungus and decay and the wood is less likely to shrink or cup. It breaks down the cell structure so that
the bugs don't eat it because it's no longer food! But, the process also reduces the structural strength of the wood substantially. That is why you only see it advertised for products like siding and decking. So could you make an outdoor chair out of it? I would think probably, a light weight garden structure? Nothing bearing which leaves out my wife's friend Mary as far as sitting on that chair goes! Most everything I've seen is a value added finished product. Milled decking,siding etc. I haven't seen it advertised as just lumber. It might be available I actually haven't looked. They are doing guitar tops --- call it "torrified" and some people think it improves the tone, some dont. It's advertised as environmentally friendly ---- because it doesn't rot? I'm having a little problem with that....you apply an enormous amount of energy super heating lumber and that makes it more woke than lumber? The redwood siding on my house is more than 50 years old. The parts of the house that get a lot of sun the siding needs to be replaced but the rest is just fine. Those faces also face the ocean, I'm not exactly on the beach but close. Its not painted but oiled regularly. The salt air has desolved several of my vehicles, the wood has outlasted steel several times over. That stuff hasn't been around that long for anyone to really know how well it holds up. I think you should do a big glue up ,put it out in the weather and get back to us in a couple of years. One thing that modifying the wood might do is make wood of inferior quality usable! Maybe that's the environmentally friendly part!
I have cooked wood for the color change but never used it outdoors. If you put white oak, cherry, or ipe in the oven they all go jet black through & through. Wrap the wood airtight in heavy aluminum foil and heat at 350 for 3-4 hours.
It is not exactly smokey, but there is a smell, nicer for the cherry, kind of acrid for the ipe. The wood feels harder in the end, but that's just my impression, not a tested result.
I do that with fish. I've straighten rosewood guitar bridges in the microwave...a few seconds and a very oily wood becomes quite pliable. I do alot of steam bending. This is different ,they take kiln dried wood and cook it at a temperature that would cause it to catch fire but they depleat the oxygen so that it can't burn. They leave it in there for several days sometimes depending on the process that is used. The processes are proprietary so different company's come up with different ways. Apparently Estonia leads the world in thermally modified wood technology. I don't think it's something that your likely going to do in your back yard.
Charcoal is made by heating wood past the burning point, but in the absence of oxygen. Thermally modify wood too far, and you'll have fuel for your cooker.
So MJ when you say oven baking the wood changes the color through and through how thick is the wood? Is the color consistent through and through?
I once picked up a couple of old redwood split fence posts. You could have called them a 6x6. The wood was as black as ebony and consistent in color through the center. If you saw a piece just sitting there you would think it was ebony until you picked it up.. I used the wood from them to trim out a window seat I built for a old Maybeck designed summer cottage and in style with the rest of the house. The fence posts came from that property and the client was especially pleased with the fact that the wood came from some wood from his own yard. From some left overs I did a couple of turnings .What I never figured out was the color natural to the wood or was it "cooked" in some way as a preservative by some 19th century fence builders, or maybe wood salvaged from a forest fire. It didn't seem burned. I've used mountains of redwood including some really dark hard old growth redwood but never saw anything close to the jet black of that stuff. There were more posts on the property but only a couple that were black. I wanted more for turning because it's a really cool effect and I might just stick a chunk in the oven to see what happens but was wondering if you have any experience with larger pieces.
Thickest I have done is 5/4 white oak and ipe. The color change went all the way through.
Green wood or dry? All the ipe I have seen comes pretty green. It took years for some that I have to season.
Mine was dry and sold as deck boards.
For an open-air table, thermally modified wood is an ideal option. It acquires unique properties that perfectly resist various weather conditions. Its strength increases, and it is already harder to leave a dent from the impact. In addition, it is easier to polish, easier to paint.
However, it is also more expensive than an ordinary tree. Maybe you should take a closer look at the finished wicker tables. I recently purchased these on the website http://www.gardenfurniture.co.uk. They have fast delivery, high quality.
Making a table yourself is pretty long and expensive.
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