Hardwood Timber - Unraveling Properties

Hardwood timber is popular wood in Australia which is well known for its huge strength and durability, and it has extended its benefits to humankind; as history can recall so far. Hardwoods have its wide area of applications in carpentry and construction, yet not limited to only these mainstream classifications.

The timber in contrast to other varieties is more resistant towards fire because of the nature of their cellular structure. Hardwood basically originates from angiosperm trees, which allows even distribution of nutrients and waters throughout its wood. The flow of even nutrients amidst the pores of the wood structure makes the timber dense and imparts genuine strength.

The Hardwood timber comes commonly from trees which are deciduous, coniferous and broad-leaved types. The common species providing hardwood are oak, maple, cherry, ash, blackbutt, mahogany, balsa, eucalyptus and many more.

Properties of Hardwood Timber

1. Longevity: This hardwood is known for its high durability and therefore they serve for a much longer period, even beyond expectations, without being withered. For the same reason, during the renovation period, the woodwork done in any premises is mostly refurbished instead of reinstallation.

2. Strength: The strength of any wood is counted by the inner density of the overall structure. And, hardwood timber comes with unmatched strength that can last for generations, because of inner composition of a stronger cellulose structure.

3. Fire Resistance: Hardwood has a higher fire resistance in comparison to softwood, the reason behind that is carbon formation on wood after ignition. Firstly, the ignition temperature of hardwood timber is very high, and carbon formation hinders the fire to progress at a much slower rate providing hardwood heavy fire resistance.

4. Maintainability: It’s much easier to maintain a hardwood structure, because of its minimum withering property. It is easy to clean the dirt, can be fixed much easier at a much lesser cost. Those reasons make hardwood much suitable for household and offices floorings.

5. Appearance: Hardwoods have been there in households for centuries and have never gone out of style or fashion. Elegance, agelessness, spaciousness and class is what it imparts, whenever you give a glance on the woodwork done at any given place.

6. Acoustics: Hardwood might not be really good with acoustics and sound absorbency yet can be improved to an extent by applying a bit of engineering.

7. Health- friendly: Hardwood timber does not attract dirt from outdoors or indoors. With no fibre releases, embossing or grout lines, hardwood hardly traps any pollens, hairs, dirt or particles. Thus, keeping it healthier and maintaining the air quality of any given premises to a much breathable extent.

8. Usages: Hardwood has always proven itself as an exceptionally better substitute in comparison to other contemporaries in terms of even grain structure, robustness, pliability, texture, strength and resilience.

Here are some of the common usages of hardwood that could be highlighted as one of the major applications of the former:    

1. Construction

2. Furniture

3. Flooring

4. Joinery

5. Staircases

6. Boats

7. Fencing

8. Sports

9. Musical Instruments

Instruments like guitars are also one of the applications of the hardwood. The huge reason is the even texture and grain structuring of hardwoods. It provides an eloquent look to the finished product, making hardwoods even more likeable.

Sports equipment like a baseball bat is also made from hardwood because they have that strength and robustness which can be used to counter the heavy energy and force of a high speeding baseball attack.

Although, there are unmatchable benefits of hardwood timber, yet it does take a lot of efforts behind shaping it into the desired results. And but obviously, hardwood is not harvested that easily, since it takes years for woods to grow to its fullest length and breadth. So, it’s advisable for optimal application usage.