FSC certified teak from Thailand

Thai Teak

Teak's botanical name is Tectona grandis with a Sanskit name of Sakka with a trade name of Teak coming from Teca, which means sweetheart of carpenter.

A medium-weight wood, rather soft with very characteristic appearance. A very good general purpose timber which has been used for ship decks and other boat work, bridges and docks, piers, quays, house interiors, lad benches, kitchen tables, attractive veneers and plywood, buildings, floors, walls, beams, boats etc. an excellent wood for carving and still used extensively in wood carving and furniture factories in Thailand

The appearance of teak was a familiar sight over most of Northern and Central Thailand; straight symmetrical trunks growing as tall as 40 metres high and often 20 metres high before the first branches, large broad leaves and cascading masses of white flowers. Teak is often thought of as a hardwood but in fact its rather soft, characteristically dull yellow to golden brown when freshly cut and oily to the touch. As timber its strengths lie in its low moisture content, very low rates of shrinkage during drying and it's durability; in some recorded cases cut teak can last for over 200 years. The heartwood is immune to termites but not to marine borers.

The 20th century saw Thailand emerge as the world's premier supplier of teak wood for products constructed of wood products. The durable hard wood being used for furniture, flooring, and the majority used in ship production, because of the teak's unprecedented ability to withstand the harsh environment of the worlds oceanfront communities.

The teak trees in Thailand's natural forests were over exploited resulting in a ban on commercial logging of teak in 1989.

Since then the Thailand's Forestry Industry Organization (FIO) has sponsored a reforestation program resulting in thousands of hectares of new teak plantations in Thailand. These plantations have now matured and some are certified by the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) as "sustainable" and "well-managed" sources for teak.

We are now at the start of a new era of FSC certified plantation teak grown in Thailand.

Teak occurs naturally in India, Myanmar, Lao and Thailand, generally occurring on fertile, well-drained soils up to 1000 m altitude. It has made sense for Thailand to reforest these areas to produce a plantation product in the same environment for which Thai teak became world famous.

We, at memorialbenches.co.uk are pleased to bring to you a new range of "chester" benches the Rochester and Winchester from a high quality factory in Thailand using FSC certified plantation Teak.