Dried fir

De BACKER works with dried fir

We made a very conscious decision to work with dried fir.
It is an excellent type of wood that changes colour evenly and retains its shape following artifical drying.

           solid wooden beams 60, 69 or 90 mm thick

PICEA ABIES (fir)

Fir comes from the Picea Abies (Norway spruce). The branches occur over the entire trunk and are visible in the finished wood as small, light-coloured knots (gnarls).
There is NO DIFFERENCE IN COLOUR between the sapwood and the heartwood. The early wood is slightly lighter than the late wood and, as a result, we can see the annual rings (growth rings) in the crosscut.
This wood is therefore evenly coloured (from white to a creamy yellow) and also has a homogenous composition, which helps it to retain its shape (furniture and musical instruments are made from dried fir).
The grain ranges from fine to moderately coarse.
Fir contains only a small amount of resin. It is not distributed over the entire surface but is mainly to be found in small 'resin pockets'.

At De Backer the wood is protected against fungi and insects using the 'vacuum-pressure-vacuum' method (injection).

PINUS SILVESTRIS (pine)

This wood comes from the Pinus Silvestris (Scots pine or pine tree)
As in the case of fir, there are many different qualities available on the market.

Differences with fir:
- The branches grow in rings (in the case of firs they are distributed over the entire trunk).
- There is a substantial difference between sapwood and heartwood.
- Branch diameter is larger than in the case of fir, which means larger knots.

• The heartwood is warm and ranges from dark yellow to reddish brown.
  The sapwood is almost white and darkens slightly.
• This tree makes heartwood from the age of 25.
• Heartwood is considerably harder-wearing than sapwood, however you cannot avoid sapwood. Sapwood absorbs a large amount of wood protection agent.
• This sapwood is therefore also very easy to impregnate in our autoclave (double vacuum) in order to thus be protected from fungi and insects. When wood protection products (finish) are applied it continues to absorb more and remains lighter in colour than heartwood.

- Pine belongs to durability class V (5, for sapwood)
and III (3, for heartwood) - The resin is to be found in small resin ducts, which are visible as extremely fine lines (in the tangential plane). Too much resin can lead to dark brown patches. The resin can also be foundin resin pockets. - Like fir, pine is easy to dry artificially. However, thick wood must be dried extra carefully in order to prevent warping and cracking.

HEAT TREATMENT