For the past few years in my profession, I have saw hundreds of quotation sheets with description of raw wood material, which are adopted either by interior designers or due to different language systems.

    However,customers it might be a little bit intractable for Chinese suppliers to follow exactly as what has been described. I list a few most commonly used wood material by Chinese commercial furniture manufacturers.

1. Ash wood

Ash wood is strong, durable and generally light in colour. It is coarse but the grain is fairly straight. As a result of its strength and durability, ash wood has an array of uses but is commonly used in the making of tools, either home furniture and commercial furniture frames.

2. Beech wood

Produced in southern of China, although it is not a luxurious wood, it is widely used in the private sector. Beech wood is medium to heavyweight. It is very hard and tough. It has good strength properties and high abrasion resistance. Beech can shrink considerably and is subject to movement more than other woods. In the past 10 years, beech wood has been most used by Chinese commercial hotel and apartment furniture manufacturers.

3. Oak wood

The advantages of oak are its distinctive mountain-shaped wood grain, good touch texture, solid texture, firm structure and long service life. All oak species are strong, hard, heavy and dense with very close grain and, due to their high tannin content, they are very resistant to insect and fungal infestations. It’s usually used for superior four or five star hotel furniture. Oak is also commonly used for furniture, joinery, flooring, panelling, decking and veneers.

Key points: Some crafty supplier may tell customers rubber wood is oak wood, because in Chinese writing, rubber wood and oak wood there is not much difference, as a matter of fact, many hotel furniture suppliers do so if customer doesn’t know about wood features.

4. Birch wood

Birch has a white sapwood and light reddish brown heartwood. The wood is generally straight-grained with a fine, uniform texture, and is generally characterized by a plain, often curly or wavy pattern. the texture is straight and obvious. Birch is elastic, easy to crack and warp when dry, and it is not abrasion resistant. Birch is a mid-range wood, and both solid wood and veneer are commonly used. I guess birch wood just make it more common for hotel furniture manufacturer and exporters.

5. Cedar wood

Cedar wood got high drability, it’s one of North China’s most durable woods, it lasts for decades it’s light in weight and uniformly textured, straight-grained and containing almost no resin. To be honest, I am not quite up on this species, it’s tricky to mix it with pine wood, which has quite another wood features, not many hospitality furniture manufacturer in guangdong around my area use it for main frame as I know. But when I go to furniture fairs, I saw lots of hospitality furniture factories ( which are mainly of them are from other part of China) use it .

6. Mandshurica wood

Fraxinus mandshurica are that the heartwood is light brown, the sapwood is light yellow-white, and the wood grain is straight, with only shrinkage and ring patterns around the root. Advantages: smooth cut surface, good paint and sticky performance, suitable for use in the north with dry climate. Since beech wood price is increasing in China, lots of contract furniture suppliers start to use it.

7.Elm wood

Elm wood is firm, relatively elastic and tough. Shrinkage is little and it is stable once dried. It has a low natural durability. The good strength of the wood makes it more difficult to work, requiring sharp tools and machinery. Elm wood is very popular for veneers of hotel case goods as well.

7. Maple wood

Hard maple is strong, heavy, hard, straight-grained and fine textured. The heartwood is light reddish-brown with deeper-coloured late-wood bands. The sapwood is white in colour, and furnishes the white maple prized for certain use. This type of wood widely used among China furniture suppliers.

8. Rose wood

Rosewood is a deep, ruddy brown to purplish-brown colour, richly streaked and grained with black resinous layers. It takes a fine polish but because of its resinous nature is difficult to work, this type of wood usually is very expensive, it’s commonly used in wood veneer form, barely no Chinese hotel furniture supplier will use solid rose wood for frames.

-Jocelyn Li  

Hostipality Furniture