Month: April 2021

What is Wood Veneer?

Wood Veneer sounds like a pseudo wood, but it’s a thin layer of natural wood glued to a cheaper pseudo wood like a pressed or particleboard. A veneer is used on furniture and can be sanded, painted, or stained like it was the whole part of the furniture. It’s done this way to keep the cost of the furniture cheaper. 

Some people confuse Veneer with laminates. Laminates are synthetic layers made to look like wood. It’s more durable than Veneer and cheaper to make furniture or flooring. You can finish laminates just like Veneer – it can be sanded, stained, or painted and made to look exactly like the real thing.

Different Types of Wood

 

The two types of natural wood are hardwoods and softwoods. They have different characteristics beyond their density, hardness, or softness — like color, smell and textures. Hardwoods come from trees with broad leaves. These trees produce seeds that are either nuts or fruits. Oak, beech, and mahogany are types of hardwood and are used for furniture making.

 Softwoods come from trees that make cones like pine and pinecones. Two other types are redwood and fir. Softwoods are used for construction, which is odd because you would think construction would call for the hardest wood.

There’s another type of wood, but it’s not a natural kind. Pseudo wood is made of particle boards, plastics, filler, and other unnatural materials or wood scraps. These ingredients get smashed together and make pressed woods.

Trees and Growth Rings 

 

As trees grow, the inside of them develop patterns called rings. The rings can tell us a lot about the tree. As everyone knows, each ring represents a year of the tree’s life, but it also can tell us the weather and when a ring was formed. Lighter-colored rings grow faster in the spring, while the darker-colored rings grow in the summer and take a longer time to develop. The speed of the ring formation is because of how cells and tissues grow underneath the bark. 

 

Based on the weather and the characteristics of the rings, we can tell if the tree was under duress. For example, was it a rainy spring, or scorching summer, or even a forest nearby in the woods? The rings in a tree are like a biography of a person. Each ring is a chapter in the tree’s life.

 

Engineering Process

 

The engineering process is a loop, with each stage informing the next one. It starts by identifying a problem or opportunity and asking questions to see how engineering can create a solution. It combines facts, data, science, and creativity. A successful engineer has both an analytical mind and a great imagination. Using the loop process brings both together.

 

After identifying the problem and asking the right questions, an engineer must research to look at the problem from all angles and then create potential ways to solve the problem. Once an engineer has formulated ideas, they plan and experiment the various ideas to see the best way to solve the problem by conducting tests. The test winner then can be redesigned to perfection. The redesign and improvements made complete the loop. However, some engineering processes never end. In technology, engineers continue to get feedback from users, computers, or machines, and their engineering process begins the loop all over again.