Teak Furniture DealYour Ultimate guide to buying teak furniture

Because teak wood is so popular and sometimes hard to find there are many imitations of teak wood out there.  When going to a furniture store it may be very hard to tell if the piece of teak furniture you are about to buy is a quality piece or not.  How do you know a good piece of teak wood furniture?  Here are a few tips to select real quality teak and not be fooled by imitators.

After reading this article you should be well versed with teak wood terms and teak history.  The first thing to do is ask where the piece of furniture came from.  If the piece came from south america or was even made here in the good old U.S.A, make sure the wood is from south east asia or india as this is where real teak wood is available.  The next thing to do is ask the salesperson what the moisture level rating is of the wood. Quality teak has a moisture level of 8-12% where as low quality teak has a much higher moisture level.  With too much moisture in a piece of low quality teak wood it will decay in a very short space of time.  One of the main teak wood imitators is called “sap wood” and contains only a fraction of the amount of natural oil and rubber of real quality teak.  Without these properties sap wood simply does not last and keep an ageless look like real teak wood.

Another easy way to know if you have a real teak piece of furniture is to simply use your eye.  What should you look for?  If the furniture looks natural it most likely is real teak.  What is natural you may ask?  Natural means that the teak furniture should not be stained or look oiled up to give you a different color.  The natural color of teak wood is kind of a graceful silver grey color.  A common method used by manufacturers is to stain the wood to cover up its low quality and poor grade of the teak wood.  If the furniture piece looks un oiled or un stained than you can feel good about it being a real quality piece of teak furniture.

Hopefully by using these tips you will avoid buying poor quality pieces of wood furniture and ensure that only quality pieces of teak wood furniture are purchased.