Gluing slats (whiteness, color differences, lack of uniformity, etc.)

COLOR UNIFORMITY

One of the most important features of natural wood is its unique structure and unique shades.

Its structure can be compared to fingerprints – finding twin pieces of wood is virtually impossible.

Each wooden product differs due to the specific arrangement of fibers or color.

GLUING PROCESS

The production process begins with the processing of strips, which after gluing form a board or block from which we cut or mill the final form of a board, tray, etc.

Almost all of our products are made of several strips glued together.

Slats used in production can come from different parts of the log, meaning they naturally vary in color and structure

Wood is an organic material whose appearance depends on many factors, such as the age of the tree, growth conditions, and the location within the log.

Our main goal is to reproduce the natural structure of wood as best as possible.

We make every effort to ensure that the strips are matched as best as possible in terms of color and line arrangement, but discrepancies may occur.

Some customers expect their products to be completely uniform, which we cannot guarantee.

Gluing/joining lines may be visible on the surface of the product.

At the following link you could check how the gluing process is held, starting from the selection of the material.

Impregnation with Oil

Impregnating wooden cutting boards with vegetable or paraffin oil aims to protect the wood from moisture and mechanical damage.

However, oiling also brings out the natural color of the wood, often deepening the color differences between the individual slats.

Darker parts of the wood become even darker, further highlighting the natural color variation of the board.

Before oiling, the surface of raw wooden products might look relatively uniform. 

However, after oiling, the color differences between the strips become apparent.

You could see a simple comparison of the same boards raw and after oiling:

The natural diversity enhanced by oiling can be a significant advantage, adding authenticity and beauty to any wooden products.

While plastic cutting boards are homogeneous and lack natural patterns, wooden boards captivate with their uniqueness and diversity.

NATURAL COLOR DIFFERENCES

Apart from the differences in colors that occur as a result of gluing individual strips, another factor is the presence of white in the material we work with.

In another article, we described the heartwood characteristic of beech. (link here)

Other species such as Oak and American Walnut also produce heartwood, which is responsible for the recognizable color of these species (the heartwood is the predominant part).

(transl. heartwood – hardwood, sapwood – white)

Sapwood is the light fragments visible in cross-section, which constitute a smaller part of the wood.

However, we cannot rule out its presence in a given batch of wood.

Sapwood is a valuable material that we use together with the heartwood.

When gluing, we try to match the sapwood strips separately, but there are products that combine sapwood and heartwood.

The mentioned color discrepancies are natural and do not constitute a product defect.