Cover It Upholstery Sydney: April 2016

TYPES OF WOOD USED IN ANTIQUE FURNITURE

Our customers sometimes ask what type of wood is used in a particular piece of furniture they may have so figured it may be a good idea for a blog post to give a quick over-view of the different types of wood used to make what is now antique furniture, whether it be for chairs, settees, dining chairs or cabinets and tables etc.

Below are some of the main wood types used:

Sycamore

Sycamore is a European wood related to the North American maple, and is as strong as oak. It is hard, milky-white, with a fine even grain with natural lustre. In medieval times furniture was made in solid sycamore, and from the late 17th century it was used in floral marquetry on walnut furniture.

When quarter-sawn the figuring is known as fiddleback, as it was often used in the manufacture of violins. Sycamore treated with iron oxide or stained green or grey was known as harewood.

Burr Walnut

Burr walnut is the term used for walnut with knotty whorls in the grain where injuries occured on the trunk or roots of the tree. It was often used in decorative veneers. Walnut is a close-grained hardwood, the colour varying between light golden brown to dark grey-brown in colour with dark streaks, often with a rich grain pattern.

Oak

Oak is a slow-growing tree, taking between 150 and 200 years to reach maturity. The wood is hard and pale in colour, but darkens to a rich brown with age and polishing. Furniture made from oak is usually heavy and solid, and simple in design. From the middle of the 17th century oak was used mainly for the carcases of furniture and drawer linings, but became popular again in the late 19th century with the Arts and Crafts movement.

Kingwood

Kingwood is related to rosewood, which was first imported to Britain from Brazil in the late 17th century. It is a rich brown with purplish tones, giving it an alternative name of violet wood. Also known as princewood,

it was used as a veneer or for parquetry decoration, particularly in France.

From c1770 it was used for crossbanding and borders.

Mahogany

Mahogany is a close grained hardwood, native to northern and central South America and the West Indies. It varies in colour from dark brown to red, and sometimes has a spotted effect. As the girth of the tree is broad, furniture makers were able to use a single cut of wood for a table-top. Furniture made from mahogany became very popular with cabinet-makers in Britain from the middle of the 18th century, followed by France and the rest of Europe. African mahogany, which is lighter in weight, was used from the 1800s onwards.

Elm

The English variety of elm is hard and durable, but liable to warp, and prone to woodworm. Chairs were made from elm from the Georgian period, and the seats of Windsor chairs were elm from the 18th century. The wych elm has a particularly attractive grain and polishes well. Burr elm was used for veneers and cabinet-work in the early 18th century.

Bird's-eye Maple

Bird's-eye maple, or American sugar maple, describes the very attractive figuring in maple. It was popular for veneers during the Regency period, and was also used in Victorian and Edwardian bedroom suites. The wood of the maple is whitish, and responds well to polishing. Bird's-eye maple is also popular today for picture frames.

Calamander

Calamander is a member of the ebony family and derives from Ceylon. Popular in the Regency period, it is light brown in colour, striped and mottled with black, and was used for veneers and banding. Calamander was also used in the manufacture of small decorative boxes. Ebony is close-grained, black in colour, and is resistant to decay.

Satinwood

West Indian satinwood was widely used c1770, and the paler East Indian variety became popular in the early 19th century. It was used widely for veneers and inlaid decoration, and the pale colour made it particularly suitable for painting. The grain varies from plain to rich figuring, the latter having a more transparent grain under polish or varnish. Cabinet makers of the 19th century preferred the West Indian variety, which was imported from Guyana some years before the East Indian variety, and was used as veneer in fine furniture from c1765. It was rarely used in the solid, and not for chairs until c1800. The Eastern type, imported from Ceylon late in the 18th century, was pale yellow and used mainly for crossbanding.

Rosewood

Rosewood is a hardwood native to South-East Asia, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Sabah, Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia. Some trees of the species grow very highly figured burrs, which are given the name 'Ambonya wood' from the Indonesian island of Ambon, and in veneer form are used in the making of furniture. Other uses of the wood include turnery, paneling, guitar-making, and knife handles.

IMAGES OF THE ABOVE WOOD'S