what tree does meranti wood come from

What kind of tree is Meranti?

Meranti is a common name for species of trees from the genus Shorea. Shorea itself is a member of the family called Dipterocarpaceae. The Dipterocarps make up over 80% of the trees in the forests of the islands in southeast Asia. Click to see full answer. In this manner, what kind of wood is Meranti?

Does meranti wood really work?

Typically, it works well. However, this is not a wood that stands up to the test of time unless it has been properly finished. In fact, unfinished meranti wood has a tendency to decay rather rapidly, far more rapidly than many other types of wood.

What is the hardness of meranti wood?

On the Janka scale -- a scale that ranks wood for hardness -- meranti varieties rank between 800 and 825. For the sake of comparison, red oak ranks 1,290. Douglas fir, a softwood, ranks 660.

Is Meranti a part of the mahogany family?

In summary, Meranti may be known by the trade name “Philippine Mahogany,” but it is neither from the Philippines nor part of the Mahogany family.

Is Meranti a mahogany?

Meranti and Philippine Mahogany are Two Names for the Same Species of Wood, but in Order to be More Precise and Deliver a More Uniform and Consistent Product, Overseas Hardwoods Company (OHC) has Decided to Focus on Two Specific Types of Meranti.

Is Meranti the same as maple?

Maple Timber, or Meranti as its also known, is a highly desired solid timber for non-structural applications. It is a very popular timber becuase of its generally straight grain and reddish brown colour.

What are the disadvantages of Meranti wood?

The Disadvantages of Meranti Wood Meranti wood is also not resistant to exposure of outside weather and high humidity. Therefore, meranti wood is not suitable for outdoor use and is not ideal to placed in direct contact with the ground. Another disadvantage of meranti is the expensive price.

What is the difference between mahogany and Meranti?

At about 36 pounds per cubic foot air-dry, meranti is heavier than Honduras mahogany. However, it is not nearly as hard nor as strong, and lacks the durability and stability of a true mahogany. And you may find brittleness in some boards.

What is Meranti tree?

Meranti wood is a hardwood from the tropical Shorea tree species. There are five groups of meranti timber, distinguished based on the color of the heartwood: dark red meranti, light red meranti, white meranti, yellow meranti, and balau.

What type of timber is Meranti?

hardwood timberMeranti is a soft to firm hardwood timber. Meranti is not subject to warping or twisting and is dent resistant. Because of its stability it can be used for a wide variety of applications.

Do termites eat meranti timber?

Light red meranti is a softer wood and not resistant to termites. It can be dried using conventional methods and bonded using standard procedures. While the sapwood readily accepts preservatives, penetration of heartwood is insignificant using current commercial processes.

Is meranti rot resistant?

Rot Resistance: Reported as moderately-durable to non-durable in regard to decay resistance, but is susceptible to insect attack. Workability: Typically easy to work, though any interlocked grain can present problems during planing, and Dark Red Meranti is reported to have very poor steam-bending properties.

Is meranti wood good quality?

Meranti is one of the easiest hardwood to deal, such as it easily cuts, machines processes just as sands. Meranti Wood is one of the reasonable hardwoods so it is utilized for moulding, furniture, structure, window, cupboards, and door trim for plywood.

Is meranti grown in Australia?

Light red meranti is readily available throughout Australia, usually marketed as meranti.

Can you stain meranti wood?

The Meranti timber used on our doors can be stained into multiple colours. This debunked popular beliefs that specific timber colour is required to obtain a desired staining result.

Is meranti wood good for outdoor?

Is Meranti good for outdoor use? or is Meranti good for exterior use? Meranti is most suited for exterior/external use. Meranti can be used as an exterior/external timber (without treatment).

Is Meranti Pacific maple?

Light red meranti is a tropical rainforest species found throughout South East Asia and the South West Pacific islands, including the Philippines, Indonesia, and east Malaysia.

Is maple considered a hardwood?

Maple trees are one of the most common species of hardwoods in North American forests.

How can you tell if wood is maple?

4:1715:17Wood Identification How to Identify Lumber Wood By Wright 2 - YouTubeYouTubeStart of suggested clipEnd of suggested clipVery common maple most the time when you have a soft maple it is there maple Don this one isMoreVery common maple most the time when you have a soft maple it is there maple Don this one is actually somewhere around 900 Janka hardness. So it's harder than the boxelder.

Are all Maples hardwood?

Of all the species of hardwoods found in the forests of North America, Maple trees are one of the most common. Within all the different variations of the Maple species, they are primarily separated into one of two types of lumber- Hard Maple and Soft Maple.

What is meranti wood?

A rich, straight-grain wood. Image Credit: roman_sh/iStock/Getty Images. Meranti is a versatile wood with many subspecies, sources and purposes. Philippine or Lauan mahogany is another, somewhat generic term for meranti that is harvested and is available in abundance on a worldwide basis.

What is the hardness of meranti?

Meranti is a hardwood. On the Janka scale -- a scale that ranks wood for hardness -- meranti varieties rank between 800 and 825. For the sake of comparison, red oak ranks 1,290. Douglas fir, a softwood, ranks 660.

What causes Meranti to blow out?

The straight-grain composition of meranti means it's friendly to planers and surfacers, but a certain amount of interlocking grain can cause meranti to blow out or splinter. Interlocking grain patterns result when parallel grain patterns turn at 90 degrees.

What blades can cut Meranti?

Because of a certain amount of silica in the wood, meranti has a dulling effect on woodworking equipment. Steel blades, bits and knives cut meranti with ease, but carbide-tipped blades and tools are recommended for projects on a production level.

Does Meranti wood have a finish?

Finishing. Meranti has little or no resist ance to insects or decay. The wood is dimensionally stable and resistant to warping or twisting. Sanding with 100-grit sandpaper is typically all that's required before finishing. Subsequent sanding with progressively finer grits yields smoother finishes.

Is Meranti a hardwood?

Colored gray or yellow, blending to reddish depending on where it's harvested, meranti ages to a golden brown with continued exposure to light. Meranti is a hardwood.

Unique Traits

There are a lot of things about meranti wood that make it unique. For starters, it looks much different after it has been harvested and allowed to age in sunlight than it looks when it is first harvested. To a certain degree, this can be true for a lot of different kinds of wood.

Easy to Work With

Carpenters that are doing specialized projects have a tendency to love meranti wood, largely because it is known for being incredibly easy to work with.

Potential Drawbacks

As previously mentioned, meranti wood is typically used for woodworking projects such as Furniture building. Typically, it works well. However, this is not a wood that stands up to the test of time unless it has been properly finished.

How Can You Buy Meranti Wood More Sustainably

The key to sustainably buying any wood is to check on relevant environmental and original certifications. Reliable certifications for sustainable woods are:

Why Is It Important to Buy More Sustainable Wood

Buying sustainable wood also means helping to prevent illegal or unsustainable logging, which harms the forests’ biosystems and accelerates climate change.

Final Thoughts

You can buy sustainable meranti furniture as long as the material comes from sustainably managed forests. However, because meranti wood comes a long way from Southeast Asia, you should check the means of transportation and their sustainability factors.

What is Meranti tree?

Also referred to as Red Seraya or Nemesu, a variety of species falls under this category . Still, it’s often sold under the trade name “Philippine Mahogany” to this day. Long used in wood boat construction, Meranti is also used in high-quality marine-grade plywood. Meranti tree.

Is Philippine mahogany a species of mahogany?

The lumber industry may be replete with misnomers, but Philippine Mahogany (really Meranti) is one of the strangest. Not only is it nowhere near being a Mahogany, but it isn’t even close to being indigenous to the Philippi nes! Actually from Southeast Asia, today’s “Philippine Mahogany” is part of the Shorea genus often referred to as “Meranti.” Also referred to as Red Seraya or Nemesu, a variety of species falls under this category. Still, it’s often sold under the trade name “Philippine Mahogany” to this day. Long used in wood boat construction, Meranti is also used in high-quality marine-grade plywood.

What is Meranti Woods?

Meranti wood is a flexible wood; Meranti is also called Lauan, Balau, and Philippine mahogany. It has many subspecies, sources as well as purposes.

What Are The Advantages of Meranti?

There are many benefits of buying furniture that is made of Meranti. They are as follows:

What Are The Disadvantages of Meranti?

One of the big drawbacks of meranti wood is that it has no resistance to decay or insects.

Meranti Wood as Furniture

Meranti wood has structures of open grain. You need to sand and prime it before it can be painted.

Meranti Wood for Cabinets

Meranti is suitable for cabinets. One of the good products of cabinet you can buy is Eichholtz Cabinet Jane in Mocha Meranti.

Meranti Wood Uses in Woodworking

Meranti wood is essential as a worldwide commercial. It will be made into plywood, cabinets, hollow-core doors, and plywood paneling as veneer material.

Meranti Wood Uses for Moldings

Meranti wood is one generic hardwood that is suitable for molding and is cheaper.

Where are meranti trees grown?

These trees are grown in Southeast Asia, including Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. There are thousands of local names for these species, but from a lumber point of view, the species are divided into four groups, based on color and weight: dark red meranti, also called tanguile, (pictured) which is dark red and very heavy ...

How tall is a meranti tree?

A typical tree can reach heights of 200 feet and 6 feet in diameter. The stem is straight, so clear lumber is plentiful. Much meranti has been imported into North America as Philippine mahogany plywood. At times, the low density of the species used in such plywood have given this name a low-quality inference.

What color is Meranti lumber?

Sometimes the pores have deposits in them that glisten. The color also varies from very light to fairly dark red, depending on the species. When purchasing meranti lumber, careful attention to the specification will be required to assure consistency of appearance and properties.

How heavy is a meranti?

By Gene Wengert. July 2, 2019 | 11:35 am CDT. Dark red meranti, also called tanguile, is dark red and very heavy (more than 40 pounds per cubic foot). Lauan is one common name for lumber from a large number (over 120) of species in the Shorea genus.

How much does a flatsawn wood change in size?

As a rough rule, the wood will change 1 percent in size tangentially (across the width in a flatsawn piece of lumber) when there is a 3.5 percent MC change, and 1 percent radially with an 8 percent MC change.

How much strength is meranti?

The strength, as may be expected, varies greatly from species to species. For light red meranti, which has a low density, the ultimate strength (MOR) in dry lumber is 9500 psi, the stiffness (MOE) is 1.2 million psi, and the hardness is 460 pounds. For dark red meranti, the values are 12,700 psi, 1.8 million psi and 780 pounds.

Is Lauan lumber accurate?

However, lauan varies greatly in quality and appearance, so generalizations are not accurate. The key for purchasing plywood and lumber is to use proper specifications to assure that you will receive the desired quality. PROCESSING SUGGESTIONS AND CHARACTERISTICS.

What is meranti used for?

Meranti is mostly used to make sills, furniture, and panels. The wood stalk can grow up to 70 meters and its diameter can reach until 4 meters or more. The latin word is Mahoni Philipina, you may find it in a reddish brown color without grain/vein.

What is Merbau wood?

Merbau Woods. This wood is originated from from Maluku and Papua, considered as a hard wood and has a nickname as Iron Wood. Its superior quality has made merbau woods to be an excellent local and export item for so long. The color of this wood is dark brown or dark red brown with an almost straight fiber direction.

How big can Merbau wood grow?

Merbau wood can grow up until 50 meters and its diameter can reach 2 meters. Due to its hardness and durability, Merbau wood is functioned to make floor materials, a building’s pole, a truck back part, until a bridge-making materials. The price itself is very competitive with teak wood.

What is the wood used to build a ship?

Ulin Woods. This wood comes from Kalimantan and it can be used as a ship building material. Ulin wood can grow up until 50 meters and it has around 1 meter diameter. Ulin wood is durable to temperature change, moisture, has water durability, and not easily eaten by termite. Ulin wood is known as a heavy and hard wood.

What is the best wood to grow in Indonesia?

2. Meranti Woods . This wood is often called as Kalimantan wood as well because it comes from Kalimantan province, actually it could grow in every region in Indonesia but it grows well in Kalimantan the most. Meranti is mostly used to make sills, furniture, and panels.

What is the main product of Sengon wood?

The main product of sengon wood such as triplex, blockboard, ice cream stick, pencil, matches, and paper’s raw materials.

Why is cendana wood not common?

Cendana is actually not common because it is not tall and even called as parasite.

Unique Traits

• There are a lot of things about meranti wood that make it unique. For starters, it looks much different after it has been harvested and allowed to age in sunlight than it looks when it is first harvested. To a certain degree, this can be true for a lot of different kinds of wood. However, it is far more prevalentwith this particular type of wood th...

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Easy to Work with

It Doesn’T Warp Easily

Potential Drawbacks