How the smell of solid wood furniture develops

To clarify the solid wood furniture “flavor” and “formaldehyde” this matter, first of all, from the solid wood furniture “flavor” source.

First, the flavor of the wood itself. According to a senior person engaged in the home furnishing industry for many years, “as long as the original wood, there will certainly be flavor. Currently on the market solid wood furniture used in the log type is relatively rich, including North American oak, black walnut, cherry, ash, etc., are popular in the market of high-end hardwood timber, recognition is also relatively high.

Each type of wood has its own unique flavor. For example, mahogany has an aromatic, sandalwood odor; pine has a turpentine odor; cypress has a cypress aroma; poplar has a grassy flavor; red oak has a sour flavor and so on. Take the relatively large amount of North American oak, because of the tannins it contains, itself is a sour flavor, this flavor as long as the log processing, will exist. Ventilation for a period of time, the surface flavor will gradually fade.

Second, the flavor of painting and glue. Logs to be processed into furniture, the surface needs to be painted to beautify. The most commonly used oil-based paint, the taste mainly comes from the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in organic solvents, commonly benzene, toluene, xylene, styrene, trichloroethylene, trichloromethane, trichloroethane, diisocyanates (TDI), diisocyanotoluene esters and so on. When the concentration reaches a certain level, there will be a noticeable odor.

Water-based paint flavor mainly comes from water-soluble resin, is the flavor of acrylic. Solid wood furniture surface coating of wood wax oil is to carnauba wax and other plant waxes as a film-forming material, linseed oil and other vegetable oils as a solvent for a kind of coating, there will also be some odor. But no matter what kind of coating, as long as the regular big brand to buy the product, in the environmental issues do not need to worry too much, the solvent will gradually evaporate, the odor weakened.

Glue itself will also have a flavor, also from volatile organic compounds. Solid wood furniture will generally use a small amount of glue in a few places, such as mortise and tenon joints, the use of large panels straight spelling process, the bite of the wood, as well as veneer veneer, finger-joined wood joints and so on. Now in addition to some furniture small workshop in order to reduce costs, will use formaldehyde as raw material urea-formaldehyde resin adhesive, formal large factories and brand enterprises, have been commonly used without formaldehyde added MDI glue, in line with the standard, do not have to worry about formaldehyde exceeds the standard. 

In general, VOCs have a volatile cycle, most of the VOCs have been volatilized in the production process, if you buy home there is still a smell, as long as you keep ventilated, can be volatilized, the smell will be significantly weakened.