Fasts about the most commonly used wood material used in commercial furniture from China.

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.

How to choose hotel furniture

Nowadays, the selection of many furniture materials by hospitality furniture suppliers is not whimsical, as a matter of fact , it is determined by the structure of hotel furniture or the needs of commercial furniture users ; how to choose the furniture from China, I have few tips below:

1. Furniture that must fully consider the human scale will also enhance the use of furniture functions. Pay attention to the form of purchasing decorative chairs. A professional hotel furniture manufacturer often spend a lot of time on the use of human scale. How high the chair should be , how could the legs will feel comfortable when sitting on it, why is the chair surface designed with a slight depression, and under what circumstances is the angle between the back and the chair surface designed? A simple chair also has many technical problems, other not to mention the other complicated furniture, the height of the partitions set in the cabinet should also consider the human body scale, so that the owner can easily take various items and allocate space reasonably.

2. It is in accord with the small requirements and living habits of the human body that are often not taken seriously. In fact, it is not that we have not encountered such a need in our lives, but there are not many hotel furniture and home furniture that take the need into consideration. The experience of some successful top brands contract furniture maker is often to pay close attention to small needs, so that the owner can enjoy life easily. For example, some computer desks have a bookshelf added to the upper layer, which can be convenient for placing books or for typing. The simple and practical plywood magazine rack nailed to the wall is very practical.

3. When customer inspecting hotel furniture, you should check the interior of the furniture to see if there is any decay. If there are insect eyes or foam in the wood, it indicates that the drying time is insufficient.For these commercial and home furniture with doors,inspectors should open the door to smell . If the smell is pungent, it means that the formaldehyde content is too high, which will cause harm to the human body.

4. The water content ( also understood as moisture rate ) ( also understood as moisture rate ) of hotel furniture must not exceed 12%, otherwise the wood is easy to bend and deform. When buying hospitality furniture , you can feel whether there is dampness at the bottom of the hotel furniture or the unpainted areas inside. If it feels damp, the water content ( also understood as moisture rate ) ( also understood as moisture rate ) exceeds 50% and cannot be used. You can also judge whether the water content ( also understood as moisture rate ) ( also understood as moisture rate ) exceeds the standard by the degree of water saturation. Sprinkle a small amount of water on the wood, and the bleed is slow or not, indicating that the water content ( also understood as moisture rate ) ( also understood as moisture rate ) is high.

5. When selecting small pieces of hotel furniture, you can take the furniture on the concrete floor and put it down. If the sound is crisp, the quality is good. If the sound is dumb and messy, the seal is not strong. The table can be gently shaken by hand to see if it is stable. You can sit on the sofa. If you sit down, it will make a squeaky sound, and it will sway when it is shaken. It is stitched by nails and has a short service life. The pillars of tables and chairs are generally fixed with triangular clips. When selecting, you should flip the tables and chairs to see if there are any clips.

How to distinguish the quality of hotel furniture

The main material used in modern furniture is wood, of which solid wood furniture occupies the main battlefield of the hotel furniture consumer, but most people tend to only look at the style and board when buying wooden turnkey furniture. I don't know much about some details, so I don't think it matters. In fact, when purchasing wooden contract furniture, especially solid wood hotel and home furniture, below are three key points to pay attention to: a. the moisture content of the wood; b. the treatment of the lacquer; c.the connection of tenon and tenon . When inspecting hotel furniture, you should check the interior of the furniture to see if there is any decay. If there are insect eyes or foam in the wood, it indicates that the drying time is insufficient. For some furniture with doors , you should open the door to smell . If the smell is pungent, it means that the formaldehyde content is too high, which will cause harm to the human body.

4. The water content ( also understood as moisture rate ) of hotel furniture must not exceed 12%, otherwise the wood is easy to bend and deform. When buying, you can feel whether there is dampness at the bottom of the hotel furniture or the unpainted areas inside. If it feels damp, the water content ( also understood as moisture rate ) exceeds 50% and cannot be used. You can also judge whether the water content ( also understood as moisture rate ) exceeds the standard by the degree of water saturation. Sprinkle a small amount of water on the wood, and the bleed is slow or not, indicating that the water content ( also understood as moisture rate ) is high.

5. Environmental protection measures (eco-friendly features)

Such as particle board, density board, glue, paint, etc., will release harmful gases to the human body. In addition, the hotel bedroom and apartment rooms are relatively closed, and the harsh and pungent gas in the early stage will directly affect the room occupancy rate. The environmental protection of hotel indoor furniture has become the most important factor for modern furniture customers to stay in hotels. Although it is inevitable for custom hotel furniture manufacturer to produce harmful gases during the production process, the quality of the materials used and the level of edge banding technology will directly affect the release of harmful gases. Commercial furniture consumers can ask the merchants when choosing hotel furniture. Ask for relevant certificates, observe more details,  The environmental protection of contract furniture must be considered in right place.

Furniture board materials

Advantages and disadvantages of different board materials

1. Solid wood particle board

It’s also called particle board , or in some countries, people call it chipboard

It is made by crushing logs and processed by high temperature and high pressure. The middle layer of particle board is wood chips, and the two sides are dense wood chips, which are pressed into a board. The surface layer is powder layered. The homogeneous particleboard is the best. The particleboard has a compact molecular structure and high bending strength.

　Advantages: Good nail-holding power, and the adhesive content is less than 5%, which is environmentally friendly. With high strength and strong stability, it is also one of the mainstream wood-based panels in the European home furniture and hotel furniture market.

Disadvantages: The flatness of solid wood particle board is not as good as that of MDF, and it is more difficult to make shapes such as curvature.

2. Medium-density fiberboard

The density board (or MDF in short) , plant fiber is the raw material, and the board is made by fiber separation, sizing, drying, paving, hot pressing, sawing and inspection. It is one of the leading products of wood-based board.it also has different density level, some of them with high density, we hotel furniture manufacturer call it Hight-density fiberboard (or MDF in short)

Advantages: The material is relatively thin, which is good for edge sealing, and it is not easy to open the glue. It is easier to make styling, usually more door panels or back panels.

Disadvantages: It uses more glue than particle board, which is more likely to cause environmental side affects. Poor moisture resistance, easy to deform when soaked in water.

3. Plywood

It’s commonly known as thin core board in the industry. It is a three-layer or more than three-layer thin board made from the log rotary cut into veneer or the wooden square sliced into thin wood, and then glued with an adhesive. Usually an odd number of layers of veneers are used, and the fiber directions of adjacent layers of veneers are aligned and glued perpendicularly to each other.

Advantages: The hardness of the splint is generally higher. Because the material and texture have been vertically interlaced during the gluing process, the strength is high and it is not easy to deform.

Disadvantages: Each layer of plywood is glued together, so its environmental protection is relatively poor.

4. Blockboard

It also called hipboard, or, called core-board, The two sides are made of two pieces of veneer, glued and splicedin the middle. The middle plank is made of high-quality natural planks after heat treatment and processed into wooden strips of a certain specification.

Advantages: Compared with particleboard and medium-density fiberboard, blockboard has the characteristics of natural wood more in line with the requirements of human nature. It has the advantages of light weight, easy processing, good nail holding power, and no deformation. It is made of interior decoration and high-end home furniture and commercial furniture.

Disadvantages: In the production process of blockboard, there will be problems such as excessive formaldehyde emission, unqualified transverse static bending strength, unqualified product moisture content, and low bonding strength.

Hotel furniture customization and the regular process before production

Due to the periodicity of hotel furniture production and the particularity of the business, hotel furniture customization and pre-production development and preparation work are very important. So every hotel furniture manufacturer attaches great importance to the pre-customization process.

Contract furniture factory have formulated the following pre-production customized processes and steps to guide the interaction and communication with customers .

1) The customer (ie the hotel furniture buyer) provides hotel furniture manufacturer with the customizing requirements, hotel furniture supplier go through details and then they will initially guide the customer to provide the design team with the hotel plan and furniture layout to ensure production team understand the actual needs of customers.

　　 2) Chinese hotel furniture engineering team and design team will lead customers to develop sample displays (if necessary ), or invite them to inspect the production process of hotel furniture , setting up meetings to exchange opinions on furniture configuration of hotel room and common area .

3) Usually china furniture manufacturer will make preliminary on-site measurements to determine the size and specifications of the furniture, for oversea customers this service can also be provided, this service is to make sure the furniture matching of various lamps, curtains, carpets and other soft decorations etc. According to the measurement results, furniture supplier will provide  3D effect hotel furniture drawings.

4) Hotel furnishing supplier will provide customers with product design drawings for customer’s approval,  When corresponding modifications and adjustments is confirmed ,contract furniture supplier will simultaneously estimate the price.

5)The two parties formally finalized the hotel furniture design drawings, including the determination of the furniture style, the selection of specifications and styles, and the use of materials will be confirmed in sales confirmation or PI.

6) According to the final design plan or sales confirmation, hospitality furniture provider will start to provide the proofing process of the furniture to the customer to determine the final materials, colors, etc.

7) After the customer's review is completed, it needs to be signed for sales confirmation, which will be used as the basis for later mass production, while the product price is negotiated, and the order contract will be signed.

6 key important and cost-effective tips for purchasing hotel furniture

The main principles for hoteliers to select hotel furniture supplier is that a company who can require their less energy and cost. And for hotel furniture manufacturer, they seek the same goal. Both hospitality furniture seller and contract furniture buyer would often emphasizes the cost factor.

The following 6 points are important and cost-effective

tips for purchasing hotel furniture .

1) Appearance

　　 The quality of appearance first requires the furniture countertop to be in fine workmanship, fine decoration, clear and beautiful texture. Guest room furniture usually apply particleboard, medium-density fiberboard, blockboard, laminate , plywood  etc.and veneer is commonly applied on top of it.

Failure to pay attention to the properties of the material and the correct use method will often cause the board to warp. The structural characteristics of the cladding material on the back and the front of the panel must the same or similar, the moisture content of the base material is generally required to be 6-10%, and the selected materials should be the same batch as possible. In the workshop processing, try to shorten the time of loading and pressing, different material characteristics and moisture content of cladding materials, commercial furniture suppliers should pay attention to board coating details　　

2) Structural strength

Guest room furniture is partial fixed furniture. Wood screws, hardware connectors and adhesives are used as joining methods. When using materials, furniture factory should pay attention to different material characteristics, such as particleboard and medium-density board, which have poor nail holding power,

Try to avoid these material for adhesive areas.

In places that require frequent activities or strong nail-holding power, such as door hinge screws, and bottom rail screws, Particular attention should be paid to the hardware pendants on the wall of the bed screen and the picture frame or use wood instead of reinforcement.

3) Material cost

Try to use low-cost materials while also meeting the requirements . While using large surface materials, pay attention to the use of the same kind of small materials to comprehensively improve the utilization rate of plates.

Hotel room furniture is generally large in quantity, the CNC system for mould is ideal.

4) Efficient production

The production need to be easy to process, and the process can be costs and improve efficiency. Good manufacturing management can be checked during first time inspection. Try to inspect your new hotel furniture supplier while they are in mass production. Their production line should be smooth and tidy.

5) Transportation and installation

It requires special consideration, for those hotel floors are high, and the furniture is required to be light in weight and easy to transport. In particular ( as an example ), some conjoined bed backs and some extended writing desks cannot be transported by elevators. How to transport safely depends on the weight and structure of the furniture.

6) Safety performance

Usually Chinese hotel furniture supplier will not consider cost for material with additional safety features. Because general China hotels do not have clear regulations, Only hotel furniture manufacturer with rich oversea market experience will understand some regulations for hotel furniture safety requirement such as fire-resistance and free formaldehyde requirements. Fireproof panels, anti-scalding paint, flame retardant fabrics, water proof material etc can be provided with clear requirement from customers.

Due to the periodicity of hotel furniture production and the particularity of the business, hotel furniture customization and pre-production development and preparation work are very important. So every hotel furniture manufacturer attaches great importance to the pre-customization process.

Contract furniture factory have formulated the following pre-production customized processes and steps to guide the interaction and communication with customers .

1) The customer (ie the hotel furniture buyer) provides hotel furniture manufacturer with the customizing requirements, hotel furniture supplier go through details and then they will initially guide the customer to provide the design team with the hotel plan and furniture layout to ensure production team understand the actual needs of customers.

　　 2) Chinese hotel furniture engineering team and design team will lead customers to develop sample displays (if necessary ), or invite them to inspect the production process of hotel furniture , setting up meetings to exchange opinions on furniture configuration of hotel room and common area .

3) Usually china furniture manufacturer will make preliminary on-site measurements to determine the size and specifications of the furniture, for oversea customers this service can also be provided, this service is to make sure the furniture matching of various lamps, curtains, carpets and other soft decorations etc. According to the measurement results, furniture supplier will provide  3D effect hotel furniture drawings.

4) Hotel furnishing supplier will provide customers with product design drawings for customer’s approval,  When corresponding modifications and adjustments is confirmed ,contract furniture supplier will simultaneously estimate the price.

5)The two parties formally finalized the hotel furniture design drawings, including the determination of the furniture style, the selection of specifications and styles, and the use of materials will be confirmed in sales confirmation or PI.

6) According to the final design plan or sales confirmation, hospitality furniture provider will start to provide the proofing process of the furniture to the customer to determine the final materials, colors, etc.

7) After the customer's review is completed, it needs to be signed for sales confirmation, which will be used as the basis for later mass production, while the product price is negotiated, and the order contract will be signed.