Teak

TROPICAL HARDWOOD

Uses: Extensively used for shop and boat building for decking, rails, hatches, etc. Furniture and cabinetmaking, interior and exterior joinery, flooring, exterior structural work and garden furniture. Also for acid resistant purposes such as chemical vats, fume ducts and laboratory benches. All grades of plywood, and sliced for decorative and face veneers.

General Description: The true teak of Burma is a uniform golden-brown colour without markings, but most other teak is rich brown with darker chocolate-brown markings. Indian teak is wavy grained and mottled, but generally straight to wavy grained, coarse textured, uneven, oily to the touch, and sometimes with a white glistening deposit. Weight varies from 610-690 kg/m³ (38-43 lb/ft³), average 650 kg/m³ (40 lb/ft³); specific gravity .65.

Further product details

Mechanical Properties

This hard, medium density wood has medium bending strength, high crushing strength combined with low stiffness and resistance to shock loads. It is fissile and brittle with great dimensional stability; it is fire and acid resistant. Teak can be steam bent to a moderate radius of curvature.

Seasoning

Dries well but rather slowly. Variations in drying rates can occur in individual pieces. Standing trees are girdled and left to dry out for three years before felling. There is small movement in service.

Durability

Very durable; liable to insect attack. It is extremely resistant to preservation treatment.

Other Information

Family Name: Verbenaceae

Latin Name: Tectona grandis

Distribution: Indigenous to Burma and India, and S E Asia, and introduced into East and West Africa and the Caribbean.

Also known as: Mai sak, pahi (Burma); sagwan, tekku, kyun, sagon, tegina, tadi (India); jati sak (Thailand); djati, gia thi (Indonesia).

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