Disadvantages of acacia wood. At first, the acacia tree was mostly used for paper mill consumption. There are many special forests for paper mills so that even trees that are only 3-5 years old (diameter 15-20cm) can be cut down. However, in the last ten years, the popularity of Acacia wood as a raw material for furniture has increased so that the demand for Acacia trees with ages above five years is increasing. But, then, is wood really good for furniture? Meanwhile, not a few producers and consumers complain about the disadvantages of acacia wood. So, read more, Ok!
Is Acacia Wood Really Potential for Processing?
Craftsmen say that acacia wood has the potential to be processed into various products, one of which is furniture. This is because this wood has a distinctive appearance, is easy to process, and is cheaper.
In addition, the status of this plant species, which is still in the Least Concern category, is no less interesting. In this category, the number of plants in the wild or non-wild is still very large. So we don’t have to worry about cutting down rare trees using wood from this plant.
The existence of acacia thus can also be expected to save other timber whose status is prone to exploitation—for example, Bing wood. Bing is an interesting wood, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to find in the wild or on plantations.
Lack of Acacia Wood
Acacia wood has advantages and the potential to be processed as described in the previous point. However, this wood also has drawbacks as a furniture material. What’s that? The disadvantages of acacia wood for furniture are as follows:
- Easy to break, sometimes frustrated when faced with the splitting nature of acacia wood. You have to be extra careful and clever in managing the wood and its construction, so it doesn’t break.
- In addition to breaking, it is curved as well. So again, you must be good at managing the construction if you don’t want to keep breaking the furniture.
- They are easily attacked by wood pests, unlike teak, which is pest resistant. Therefore, acacia wood is more susceptible to pests and must be given anti-wood pests early on / after splitting the board directly in the application.
- Long dry. If in the oven, it can take up to a month, while teak or mahogany can dry in just two weeks. Furniture artisans usually dry them in the sun before putting them in the oven to save costs.
- Lots of knots, bad for someone who knows wood.
Acacia Wood Quality Improvement
Even though it has the potential to be processed, improvements and quality improvements must certainly be made here and there. We need to do a few things with the acacia wood in this case. One of them is in terms of durability.
Why durability? The level of durability of wood will affect the life of a product. For example, wood with low durability will be a bad furniture material. This is because tether (powder), termites, and fungi will easily damage the resulting furniture.
Therefore, it is necessary to increase the durability of wood. This can be done by applying a preservation treatment. Acacia wood, for example, is wood in durable class III. However, the durability class can improve with preservation treatment at levels I or II.
Just make sure you apply the treatment correctly. The preservation method itself is usually done by immersing preservative drugs. And the quality of preservatives plays a very important role in the preservation results. Then, the disadvantages of acacia wood will be decreased.
See also our article about mango wood here.