Stained wood: features and uses

Everyone knows that there are valuable tree species, and there are more affordable ones, such as pine or spruce. But there is a very special category of wood – stained. This is a tree that, having lain in water for tens, hundreds, thousands of years, acquires incredible beauty and strength. Let’s talk about stained wood.

Trunks and fragments of trees lying under the water are usually called driftwood. A logical name, given that the tree really turns out to be drowned, has been at the bottom of the sea, lake, river, swamp for decades. It is noteworthy that some of the trunks turn into dust, rot and, of course, cannot be used. But other trees, on the contrary, acquire truly stone strength..

The most valuable stained wood is oak. This royal wood is already prized for its durability and beautiful texture. After lying under water for at least 300 years, oak acquires delicate fawn shades. If the tree is black, then it has lain in the reservoir for about 1000 years! In the pre-industrial era, “black gold” was not called oil at all, but bog oak. Products made from it are practically eternal, they are not susceptible to decay, fungus, or mold. They do not need a protective coating, and stained wood looks extraordinarily beautiful.

Besides oak, larch is considered the most valuable stained wood. This is not surprising. It is these tree species that, due to their high density, sink, sink to the bottom, where a transformation process takes place under a layer of silt or sand. Even fresh water contains salts that interact with the tannins of wood and help it acquire special hardness and strength..

According to experts, for a tree to truly become stained, it must lie under water for at least 40 years. In general, the longer the better, experts say. The ideal places for obtaining stained wood are stagnant waters of swamps or lakes. But a tree that has lain in sea water, soaked in salt, will also be no less durable.

You can make literally anything from stained wood: furniture, parquet, various crafts, figurines and figurines, boxes, billiard cues, pipes, other interior items and even jewelry. This material has no drawbacks, but it is not available to everyone. Stained wood, especially oak and larch, is very expensive! There are several good reasons for this:

• First, it is rare material. Although, as calculated in the Central Research Institute of Timber Rafting, in the process of transporting tree trunks, about 1% of the total volume of rafting drowns, and about 9 million m3 of driftwood has accumulated in the Volga basin. That’s a lot, you might say. But finding sunken tree trunks is not easy. In addition, only 50% of all sunken wood can be attributed to business, that is, suitable for further use. And there is no more than 5% oak among the snags. In Europe, they have been looking for and raising flooded trees for a long time and purposefully, so it is already very difficult to find driftwood in European countries. Russia still has reserves of this material;
• Secondly, it is technically difficult to lift a tree to the surface. Special equipment is needed, usually the help of scuba divers is required. The wood becomes heavy, you cannot reach a solid trunk by hand;
• Thirdly, it is not enough to get a snag. It also needs to be dried before use. This takes about a year, and in no case can you speed up the process, drying should occur naturally;
• Fourthly, it is difficult to process wood that has become very durable; special skills and tools are needed. Not all carpenters take on bog oak.

Therefore, for three kilograms of bogged black oak on the Internet, they often ask for about 2 thousand rubles! Or 200 rubles for one small piece, literally a cube, suitable only for cutting, for example, a knife handle. And a finished bog oak comb, such as shown in the photo above, will cost more than 12 thousand rubles. You can imagine how much a parquet made of such material or a kitchen set will cost. Experts compare the cost of a good bogged oak log to the price of a car. Smoked birch, pine, aspen are cheaper – they ask for from 1.5 to 20 thousand rubles per cubic meter, depending on the condition and quality of the wood.

With such prices for stained wood, it is not surprising that manufacturers of furniture and interior items achieve similarity with the help of stains, special impregnations. Yes, this is already an imitation, in terms of strength and hardness such a tree does not differ from an ordinary one, but the color becomes darker, nobler, the structure is emphasized.

Stained wood is an elite material. Only for expensive interiors, yacht finishes, luxury car interiors, furniture that stands in the offices of presidents and managers of large companies.