Reclaimed Teak Only (1)
Reclaimed Teak Only is not just our company motto. Reclaimed Teak is a manifest to what people call with ‘kayu lawas’, which is mainly comes from old teak houses (or from other sources such as old bridges, stables, shed or cow/buffalo house, old ship, etc) with some years than can be categorize as old to be broken down and taken as main components for furniture production, the material are not from new cut-down teakwood trees or plantation teakwood. We used Reclaimed Teak Only as our motto as part of our past activities as an environmentalist so that goes with our current spirit to make our earth more greener (as in Green Furniture) and for Eco-Friendly enthusiasm which had been the talk around the world. The term of ‘kayu jati lawas’ or Reclaimed Teak in English also known as Recycled Teak, Refurbished Teak, Remade Teak, Rediscovered Teak, and many other term.
We categorize our carpenter’s tools as in traditional level because they only the continuation of the same tools as our ancestors used in the past long ago. For example, a jack-plane tool is used to level the surface of a plank, in old ways the tool is made of woods with a steel or iron chisel so it can be plane out on wood to make a smooth and level surface. The tool can be used also to taper down the width of a plank; this can be done by leveling the chisel that will eat-out the wood. Nowadays, a jack-plane is added with some electricity and a small machine modification, we call this tool as hand-planer. The function and utility of this tool is still the same, it still utilized human power (even though, diminished by the small machine and electricity).
The use of material that comes from old houses, old bridges, railroad, ships, etc., we are trying our best to avoid the using of new cut-down teak trees and also diminishing illegal logging especially to teak trees that even now is still going on. Even though, we are not saying that we never use the new teak (especially from plantation) as our material of furniture because we still selling chairs. As known, the design of chairs used a lot of curves so it hard and difficult for us to make the chair using Reclaimed Teak material. From all material that we used, chair’s teak material taking only five percent.
Reclaimed Teak Only (2)
The moisture content in Reclaimed Teak is around 10 to 18 percent which made these materials superior to other teak material. This low moisture content made the material as easy handling in production as it will not need to put in the dry chambes anymore. The color character of Reclaimed Teak is always fixed and beautiful by natural ages, meaning that it will not change a lot according to the passing of time, the grain are very prominent.
That can be achieved because the teak material are cropped from places (old teak houses, bridges, etc.) with ages beyond 50 years old, without any finishing the furniture are already beautiful. So, if we look back to the origin of Reclaimed Teak material we will have teakwood wiht a minimal 100 years in ages. In mean time, the teak material to build houses ages ago are cropped from teak trees that planted in the yard with a minimal ages of 50 years old to reach acceptable diameter and straight log to be used as main column and rod for the house. Even the planks for the walls would need a wider diameter teak tree so the log could produce enough widht to provide a cover for the whole house. These log to produce wall planks are always without sapwood.
Our ancestor who planted these teak trees ages ago had an only intention which is to prepare the houses component for their children or grandchildren or even great-grandchildren. And that goes along for their offspring that would plant teak trees in the yard for their offspring, not for their self.
If we research further more, the furniture that are produce using Reclaimed Teak will endure more to the extreme climate without any complicated handling (eg. dry chamber) on a newly cut-down teak trees. These teakwoods are already weatherproofed as they had been used as part of houses, bridges, ships, etc.; exposed by the changing climate, rain and the sun. Shrink-ness or contraction that normally happens to any teakwood will not be the main problem anymore for Reclaimed Teak (kayu jati lawas), on the contrary, shrink-ness was always the main problem for a newly cut-down teak. Also, the handling of Reclaimed Teak material is not as complicated as with new teak; the new teak will have to reach some acceptable percentage of moisture content in order to be produce as furniture. First as a tree, procedure of ‘penderesan’ or tapping the teak trees minimal in one year before it can be cut-down. After that, the log would have to be kept in minimal in one year also, before the logs are put in the saw mill so we can make our choices of furniture component that we need. From sawmill, the teakwood will have to pass through dry chamber procedure (there are many theory about process in the dry chamber) minimal about one month long.