Knowing Hard and Soft Woods. Wood is a natural product material from forest. Wood is a building material that many people like for reasons of appearance and strength. From the aspect of strength, wood is quite strong and rigid even though the wood material is not as dense as steel or concrete
Basically, there are two types of wood, namely hardwood and softwood. This term does not refer to the level of hardness but simply a classification for the type of tree from which the wood is derived.
Hardwood
Hardwood comes from trees whose seeds are contained in fruit bodies. Another characteristic, usually has broad leaves with many pores so that it forms a very strong wooden construction. such as teak, mahogany, maple and others.
Hardwood is a raw material that is often used for making floors, ship decks, house poles, chairs, cabinets and others. They use it because it has a density and structure that is denser, until it is harder.
Hardwood drying process takes longer than soft wood. This is because trees (hardwoods) have many pores to absorb water. So the volume of water content is very much. Wood pores have hygroscopic properties, namely cells that have the power to absorb water and also expel it. We can see this from the large number of leaf pores with wide leaf shapes.
Softwood
Meanwhile, the characteristics of soft wood are that it comes from tree species whose seeds do not have or are covered by fruit flesh, such as pine trees. other characteristics, usually have oval-shaped leaves and white wood. Such as Pine trees, Fir, Sengon and others.
Softwood usually has cells with a wider size or what are called radius cells. This is the characteristic of soft wood (only has cells) and does not have pores. So that the density level in the cells is lower and the wood texture is softer.
In terms of growth, softwood has a faster growth because the leaves do not fall so that the concentration of photosynthesis is not disturbed. Softwood raw materials are usually used more for the manufacture of handicrafts, paper and others.
Hardwood Type:
Maple Wood: Maple wood is often used by woodworkers for musical instruments.
Mahogany: The use of this wood is to make furniture. because the Mahogany tree is a very popular furniture material and has a reddish brown color.
Teak wood: In accordance with its strong, hard, durable and not easily deformed. So this wood is mostly used as raw material for making houses, furniture and ships.
Softwood type:
Sengon wood: This wood is widely used for industrial purposes in wood processing factories, both in the form of processed wood boards such as crate manufacture, cement casting in construction, matchmaking, paper, pencil and other industries.
Fir wood: this wood is often used for making wooden floors, cabinets, some furniture, and other wooden objects.
Pine wood: this wood is very popular with wood craftsmen because its veins resemble teak wood.