Caring for a cane chair
Simple habits that keep the weave tight for twenty years.
Why we dry teak for two years
What happens to wet wood in a humid climate, and why patience costs less.
A freshly cut teak log is full of water. If you make a table from it straight away, the wood keeps drying in your home. As it dries it shrinks, unevenly, and the tabletop can split, warp or pull its joints apart. In Kerala, where the air swings from dry to monsoon wet, the movement is worse.
So every log we buy at the Nilambur auctions is sawn into planks and stacked in our yard with spacers between them, under a roof but open to the air. It sits there for at least two years. We check the moisture with a meter, and only cut when the wood reads between 10 and 12 per cent.
This means we hold a lot of wood at any time, and it is the main reason our prices are not the lowest in the market. But it is also why we can guarantee our joints for ten years.
When you visit, you can walk through the yard and see the planks waiting. Each stack is chalked with the date it was cut. Some customers choose the planks for their own table there and then.
