CABINET-MAKING. 135 



a limit to the construction of solid wood furniture owing to its 

 weight. Beechwood is largely used wherever friction and wear 

 and tear will be considerable, as in work-tables, chairs, wedges, 

 &c. It is also often used stained in various tints to imitate more 

 valuable woods. 



The cabinet-maker selects his material for its fine colour, 

 good texture, freedom from knots, ease in working, capability of 

 being polished, and for being little liable to warp or crack. 

 Finely marked and wavy woods are highly esteemed. 



In order to reduce warping and shrinkage as much as possible, 

 the cabinet-maker only uses thoroughly seasoned wood ; he 

 does not care for the most durable wood, but prefers wood 

 which is easily worked, with, or against, the grain. He therefore 

 means quite a different kind of oakwood from that esteemed 

 by the ship-builder when he speaks of good oakwood, and 

 prefers that of the sessile to the pedunculate oak. The best 

 cabinet-maker's oakwood comes from the Spessart, the Pfalz, 

 the Silesian mountains, from French forests managed under the 

 even-aged high forest system, and generally from mountain 

 districts with a slow rate of growth ; on account of its lower 

 density it is less liable to shrinkage. Slavonian oak and that from 

 coppice-with-standards is much less prized. 



Beechwood would be much more highly prized for furniture, 

 on account of its dense uniform texture, were it more frequently 

 obtainable from middling sized trees in quarter-balks from 

 which the core of the tree has been excluded. Such wood is 

 excellent material for working up, and is now being extensively 

 used for bent-wood* furniture. 



Thoroughly sound beech stem-wood free from knots is used 

 for bent- wood furniture, and young wood is preferred to old. 

 Even large pieces may now be easily bent, and the bending avoids 

 sharp corners, dovetailing and glueing, the pieces being. merely 

 bent and screwed together. The wood is felled in summer and 

 sawn into rectangular pieces 6-10 feet long and l|-2 inches in 

 diameter, which give a waste of 60-70 per cent. 



Beech-veneers are also glued together and made into the seats 

 of chairs. These are now being used in increasing numbers. 



* See an excellent article by Exner on bending wood, in the Ceutralblatt fur 

 das gesanite Forstwesen. 1876. 



