What is kiln dried engineered wood?

[Gramps' shop]

Manufacturer of a sofa we are thinking of buying describe the frame as comprised of "Kiln-dried engineered wood and solid wood." Anyone come across KD engineered wood who can enlighten me?

Thanks,

Larry

[Scott Lurndal]

One kiln dries the wood that is subsequently resawn and laminated to form the engineered timber.

[Leon]

Engineered hard wood floors are essentially plywood with thick plys. This may be the new way to say plywood.

[dpb]

_All_ commercially-produced wood furniture will have kiln-dried lumber as the start; that's just "marketing-speak" trying to sound like it's something unique that it isn't.

"Engineered wood" is any of a number of possibilities, most being various ways of producing larger pieces from smaller, lower cost alternatives from using solid pieces of the same end size.

IOW, it's just a fancy way of saying "we glue stuff up and then cut it down to size" without giving any real limitations on what, specifically, is actually done.

IOW, it's all meaningless other than the fact that it says the piece isn't all one solid, single piece of wood. In fact, probably it'll be structural pieces that are glued up with a face layer of the appearance-selected species that is visible.

From a structural viewpoint, it's quite possible the piece is a strong or stronger than it would be if solid what with the current technology of UV-cured glues and all but like everything else whether it actually is or not will depend on the actual species they do use and more importantly, how well the producer of the material manufactures it. That, unfortunately, there's really no way to know other than by whether the manufacturer is willing to stand behind the piece for more than 90 days and/or end-user satisfaction reports on similar pieces of the same manufacturer using the same technology and hope it's still the same supplier and process.

Or, to sum it all up..."who knows?"

[FrozenNorth]

Bingo, it is marketing speak, ie. "Baffle them with BS"

[Ed Pawlowski]

The best engineered wood is made from kiln dried wood that was cut with saw blades precision sharpened by experienced machinists. Logs were harvested using well tuned chain saws on sun filled day.

The more words you use the higher price you can get.

[dpb]

On 08/10/2016 12:08 PM, dpb wrote: ...

...

And should add, it's _possible_, as in much of the "engineered flooring" that they shape the underlying structural form from a secondary wood and then laminate the surface with printed pattern to simulate the finish to match expensive things like mahogany or the like rather than actually having a wood surface, too. Some of these may look just like the real thing appearance-wise if they use good-quality images of real wood from which to start and high-resolution printing processes. Some, on the other hand, make look just like what they are; sorry imitations that would only fool somebody who never looked at a real piece of wood with any discernment whatsoever (which, of course, is quite a large fraction of the buying public anymore).

You'll have to ask and a floor sales rep probably won't know enough to be able to really answer the questions and the manufacturer may not be willing to say unless you really, really push...

Any manufacturer we might have heard of? Knowing that _might_ give some clue altho everything except custom individual stuff these days is imported, mostly from China; unfortunately as you're probably aware, there's no large national commercial furniture manufacturing left in the US an longer, only some small regional shops.

[Leon]

Perhaps not. Engineered wood is stronger than solid wood. But the uneducated think plywood is crap compared to solid wood. It is marketing speak but probably from the stand point that the customer does not think they are using an inferior material.

[dpb]

On 08/10/2016 2:59 PM, Leon wrote: ...

I'd recast that as "_can be_ as strong as or stronger" rather than "is"...depends on what species are used and how it's manufactured.

Yes, structural laminates are stronger than their conventional counterparts; doesn't translate 100% to this methinks...

I'm not saying it isn't, just wouldn't go so far as to make the blanket statement not knowing the piece, the manufacturer, etc., etc., etc., ...

[Leon]

Yes, I should have mentioned apples to apples, etc.

[clare]

"engineered wood" is wood where the grain of different sections is oriented in a pattern designed by the engineer to provide the required strength in the required locations and directions using the least actual wood required. Often it is like a combination of finger jointing, block core, and plywood.

Furniture with "engineered wood" components is higher end furniture than the crap built with "wood product" such as MDF, waferboard, and compressed sawdust and in some cases actually better than furniture made with "solid hardwood" which can split and warp (and often does) Engineered lumber does not crack, split, or warp and is generally lighter than the crappy "wood pruduct" as well as being much stronger, and holds fasteners much better.. In some cases the "engineered wood" is baltic ply (aka "russian birch")

[dpb]

On 08/10/2016 4:04 PM, [e-mail] wrote: ...

Yeah, but who's doing the "engineering" and more importantly, the manufacturing is the key to what you really may get.

...

Again, while generally true, just how much so will depend greatly on just what level of quality the manufacturer has specified to their vendor and then the ability of (and the QC on) that vendor to actually produce the product.

There was a thread here just the other day illustrating how poor some of those materials can actually be...

Again, while I won't argue any of the above "CAN" be so, I think it's overly optimistic in consumer goods to simply presume "WILL BE" so, at least without some serious visual inspection and question-raising.

As I noted, I'd consider strongly what sort of product satisfaction the seller/manufacturer will offer as indication of what they really think over any just presumption based on the marketing hype which is all the above is.

Yet again, not saying it isn't/can't be good to excellent to even superior; just I'd not be assuming it means it _has_ to be...

But I will agree, OP's probably doing better than run-of-the-mill stuff off the floor at the local Ashley outlet...

[Electric Comet]

wonder if the wood was from the north or south facing side of the tree

and uphill or downhill side