Handbook of Building With Wood

Working with wood is not as easy as many people assume. There’s a lot that goes into a piece of woodwork. Here is a basic handbook for wood building.

Structure of Wood

Wood is actually far more complex than it looks. On the very outside of the tree is its bark. Bark is basically a layer of stems and roots. There is an inner bark and an outer bark. Inside most pieces of wood, you’ll find growth rings. These rings are unique in that they allow you to tell a certain type of wood’s age. Wood also has knots or imperfections. Knots are parts of tree limbs that died and then became trapped when newer layers of the tree’s growth covered them. Wood cells vary in size and shape and are long and pointed at the ends. They give wood its “grain.”

Physical Properties and Moisture Relations

Wood’s physical properties are important. When using wood to make things like furniture, both grain and texture are important. Similarly, a wood’s color is also to be considered. Moisture content is also important. This is the weight of water in a certain piece of wood and affects other factors like weight, strength, and the amount of shrinkage in the wood.

Biodeterioration of Wood

Like all other living things, wood is subject to decay. When a tree dies, it soon becomes infested with many types of bacteria, fungus, and insects that eat it away. Eventually, the tree is completely biodegraded. However, there are certain types of bugs and bacteria that grow on healthy trees. Sometimes, this kills the tree but other times, in the cases of certain types of mushrooms, the two living things can coexist for a period of time. In some cases, decay happens because something breaks through the bark and gets to the tree.

Commercial Lumber

Buying wood can be tricky. The grade of a piece of wood is based on the number, character, and the features that may compromise the quality of the wood such as knots, pitch pockets, or stains. Mostly, hardwood lumber is used to make furniture, flooring, and paneling, among other things. Meanwhile, softwood lumber is usually used as the raw material for construction and manufacturing products like paper. Grading for softwoods is a bit simpler than grading for hardwoods because things like knots don’t make much of a different when turning wood into other raw materials. The grading system also has a complicated listing of abbreviations that’s used to identify wood.

Lumber Stress Grades

The quality of a piece of lumber is determined by its grade. Standards for measuring this differ from country to country. However, grade is determined by a few methods. There is visually grading, which occurs when someone identifies knots, the slope of the grain, shake, density, and decay. Other tests include taking a sample of the wood and testing it for mechanical properties. Wood is now also machine-graded. All of these are important for determining the quality of a piece of wood.

Fastenings

Wood fastenings are used to join wood to other pieces of wood or other materials. Nails are the most common fastening to be found and they come in many sizes. Some nails have surfaces that are not smooth to prevent them from shifting. Spikes are less common these days although they are used in railroad construction. Staples are also very common and they come in various sizes. Drift bolts were often used in making ships and wood screws are screws designed exclusively for wood. They have flat, oval, or round heads. No matter what type of fastener, it’s important that they not slip from the wood.

Adhesive Bonding

Bonding wood to other things using adhesive is one of the reasons why the lumber industry has grown so huge. It’s also very big in the construction industry. Adhesives are usually used in small amounts to put together building materials. They are also used for floor coverings, tile, and countertops. Adhesives increase the strength of the composite wood because they distribute stresses.

Wood-based Composites

Composite woods are used more and more these days because everything about the reconstituted wood – all of its main properties – can be carefully controlled so it’s possible to produce the best possible wood for any given job. Composite woods are wood materials that have been adhesive bonded together. Fiberboard, plywood, wood plastic composite, particleboard, and even specialty composites are all examples of composite woods.

Wood Finishes

At the very end of any project that’s done with wood, the wood has to be finished. Wood finishes are the best way of protecting the wood from water damage, shrinkage, wear and tear, and even color fading. Many different types of wood finishes specially designed to help wood resist damage for years are available. They are usually solvent-based.

Benefits of Wood Finishing