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Like so many other maple trees rubberwood is a sap producingtree and in its paticular case rubber is produced. Once a tree had fulfilledits rubber making life time it would be cut down and burned as useless wood.When this tree is farmed its sustainability feature is highly important. Todayrubberwood is the most environmentally friendly lumber that is milled and usedin furniture. Other types of wood used in the industry are specifically grownonly for their lumber. However a rubberwood first completes nearly 25 years asa rubber producer before being turned into furniture. Once the tree dies it isthen milled making it friendly in every sense of the word. There is absolutelyno waste to this farmed lumber source.

Rubberwood has many names, rubber tree and in Thailandit is called parawood. Whatever the name it is called by one thing is for sureit is great for creating high end furniture. The dense grain, beautiful color,minimal shrinkage and ability to accept many finishes make it very popular. Thefact that it is also environmentally sound does not hurt its acceptance either.Since it is allowed to run a full production of latex nothing is wasted. Manypeople misunderstand the name of thisfine specimen of wood.

The nature of the name of the wood is confusing enough,rubberwood invokes images of bouncing furniture when in fact this is one of themost durable hardwoods used in furniture making today. This member of theEuphorbiaceae family is characterized bydense grain that is simply controlled in the kiln drying process. The lack ofshrinkage makes for a perfect material from which to build furniture. Thelumber is easy to work with and will take on many different finishes. Forexample rubberwood can be made to look like oak or rosewood, this can causeconfusion though when it comes time to identify what type of wood a particularpiece of furniture is made from.

At the time when vulcanization was made perfect, a processthat kept rubber from degrading, production was augmented for the production ofbike tires. When car productions increased so did the demand for rubber for thetires. By WW II, there was such a high demand for rubber that tires began to bemanufactured from synthetic material. This led to a fall in rubber production untilit was discovered in 1960 that the rubberwood tree had other uses. They figuredout that it was a great wood for furniture as it was nearly as hard as oak.

In this day and age the rubber from the rubberwood is usedprimarily for erasers, condoms and gloves.

To finish a piece of rubberwood is not much different thanother hard woods. To get that smooth even finish it will have to be sanded, thesmoother the sanding the lighter the finish tends to turn out. A good trick tosanding is to see the wood with your hands. Instead of merely looking at itfeel the wood for rough patches, these rough areas will stain darker thansmoothe ones. I prefer to sand with a sanding block and a clean hand. It willnot be hard if you are good at your technique and use 150 grit sandpaper. Donot forget you must sand with the grain and not against it.