FAQ
I. Frequently Asked Questions on Leather sofa
II. Frequently Asked Questions on Wood Furniture
5. What's the advantage of using wood veneer?
Leather
Leather is a durable and flexible material created via the tanning of putrescible animal rawhide and skin, primarily cattlehide. The leather and the fur industries are differentiated by the manufacturing importance of the raw materials used to make the wares. In the leather industry, the skin and rawhide are by-products of the meat industry, because the meat has greater commercial value than the rawhide and skin. In the fur industry, the meat is a by-product, because the skins and hides have greater commercial value. Moreover, in taxidermy, the raw materials usually are only the animal’s head and back; hide and skin also are the raw materials for manufacturing animal glue and gelatin.
Bicast leather (also known as bycast leather, split leather or PU leather) is a split leather with a layer of polyurethane applied to the surface and then embossed. Bycast was originally made for the shoe industry and recently was adopted by the furniture industry. The resulting product is cheaper than top grain leather and has an artificially consistent texture that is easier to clean and maintain.
Furniture manufacturers say that the chief benefit of bycast leather is its price. Lower grades of leather can be used during the manufacturing process and treating with polyurethane gives a uniform shine and a long-lasting "like new" appearance. Bycast leather looks best, they say, on furniture with taut seat cushions and pillows. It can easily be cleaned with a damp cloth. New bycast leather furniture can have a slight chemical smell, but this typically dissipates about a week after the piece is exposed to air.
Bonded leather, or reconstituted leather, is an artificial material composed of 80% to 100% leather fibers (often waste scraps from leather tanneries or leather workshops). It consists of collagen fibers obtained from macerated hide pieces bonded together with latex binders constructed into a fibrous mat to create a look and feel similar or sometimes identical to that of genuine leather but at a fraction of the cost. Depending on the quality a man-made pattern is usually discernible as a "grain-like" look.
Examples of products that are most commonly constructed with bonded leather are: bibles, diaries, art books, desk accessories, hymnals, bags, belts, chairs, and sofas.
There are manufacturers who call their chemical treated leather, bonded leather.
Top-grain leather is a misnomer: it gives the false impression that it is "top" quality. In fact, full-grain is the highest quality. Top-grain leather is the second-highest quality. Its surface has been sanded and refinished. As a result, it has a colder, plastic feel, less breathability, and will not develop a natural patina. However, it does have 2 advantages over full-grain leather: it is typically less expensive, and has greater resistance to stains.
Full-grain leather refers to the upper section of a hide that previously contained the epidermis and hair, but were removed from the hide/skin. Full-grain refers to hides that have not been sanded, buffed, or snuffed (as opposed to top-grain or corrected leather) in order to remove imperfections (or natural marks) on the surface of the hide. The grain remains in its natural state allowing the best fiber strength and durability. The natural grain also has natural breathability, resulting in less moisture from prolonged contact. Rather than wearing out, it will develop a natural patina over time, with some cracking and splitting. The finest leather furniture and footwear are made from full-grain leather. For these reasons, only the best raw hide is used to create full-grain leather. One way to test if leather is full-grain is to lightly scratch its surface with your nail. If it leaves a lighter-colored streak, it's full-grain. Full-grain leathers are typically available in two finish types: aniline and semi-aniline.
Split leather is leather created from the fibrous part of the hide left once the top-grain of the rawhide has been separated from the hide. During the splitting operation, the grain and drop split are separated. The drop split can be further split (thickness allowing) into a middle split and a flesh split. In very thick hides, the middle split can be separated into multiple layers until the thickness prevents further splitting. Split leather then has an artificial layer applied to the surface of the split and is embossed with a leather grain (Bycast leather). Splits are also used to create suede. The strongest suedes are usually made from grain splits (that have the grain completely removed) or from the flesh split that has been shaved to the correct thickness. Suede is "fuzzy" on both sides. Manufacturers use a variety of techniques to make suede from full-grain. For example, in one operation, leather finish is applied to one side of the suede, which is then pressed through rollers; these flatten and even out one side of the material, giving it the smooth appearance of full-grain.
Leather match means that all the seating areas on a sofa including seating cushion, back cushion arms are made of leather. Areas such as back of the sofas and side of sofa is made of matching vinyl.
Full leather means the whole sofa is made of leather, no matching vinyl of PU in the compositions including the back and side are leather.
Solid wood is a term most commonly used to distinguish between ordinary lumber and engineered wood, but it also refers to structures that do not have hollow spaces. Engineered wood products are manufactured by binding together wood strands, fibers, or veneers with adhesives to form a composite material. Engineered wood includes plywood, oriented strand board (OSB) and fiberboard. The fact that a product is made from solid wood is often touted in advertisements. However, using solid wood has advantages and disadvantages.
Medium-density fibreboard (MDF) is an engineered wood product formed by breaking down hardwood or softwood residuals into wood fibres, often in a defibrator, combining it with wax and a resin binder, and forming panels by applying high temperature and pressure. MDF is much stronger and denser than plywood.
It is made up of separated fibers, (not wood veneers) but can be used as a building material similar in application to plywood. It is much more dense than normal particle board.
The name derives from the distinction in densities of fiberboard. Large-scale production of MDF began in the 1980s
Plywood is a type of Manufactured Wood made from thin sheets of wood, called plies or wood veneers. The layers are glued together so that adjacent plies have their wood grain at right angles to each other for greater strength. There are usually an odd number of plies, as the symmetry makes the board less prone to warping.
A common reason for using plywood instead of plain wood is its resistance to cracking, shrinkage, twisting/warping, and its general high degree of strength. Also, plywood can be manufactured in sheets far wider than the trees from which it was made. It has replaced many dimensional lumbers on construction applications for these reasons.
In woodworking, veneer refers to thin slices of wood, usually thinner than 3 mm (1/8 inch), that are typically glued onto core panels (typically, wood, particle board or medium-density fiberboard) to produce flat panels such as doors, tops and panels for cabinets, parquet floors and parts of furniture. They are also used in marquetry. Plywood consists of three or more layers of veneer, each glued with its grain at right angles to adjacent layers for strength. Veneer beading is a thin layer of decorative edging placed around objects, such as jewelry boxes.
Veneer is obtained either by "peeling" the trunk of a tree or by slicing large rectangular blocks of wood known as flitches. The appearance of the grain and figure in wood comes from slicing through the growth rings of a tree and depends upon the angle at which the wood is sliced.
In addition to the obvious savings of our natural resources, many projects built using wood veneer would not be possible to construct using solid lumber. Due to expansion and contraction common to all wood products and caused by changes in humidity, many of the patterns and designs possible with veneers would self destruct, if attempted with solid lumber. The limitless designs done with marquetry and parquetry would also be impossible.
A laminate is a material that can be constructed by uniting two or more layers of material together. The process of creating a laminate is lamination, which in common parlance refers to the placing of something between layers of plastic and glueing them with heat and/or pressure, usually with an adhesive. However, in electrical engineering, lamination is a construction technique used to reduce unwanted heating effects due to eddy currents in components, such as the magnetic cores of transformers.
A all wood furniture are furniture that made of combination of solid wood, veneer, MDF or plywood. There are a few advantages for all wood furniture. First, this could create certain design that can't be complete for solid wood. Second, this will give better wood patter for the finished furniture. Third, due to expansion and contraction common to all wood products and caused by changes in humidity, many of the patterns and designs possible with veneers would self destruct, if attempted with solid lumber, etc.