You can often tell the piece is laminate due to the manufactured appearance of the wood grain. Higher-end laminate pieces have a slightly more realistic look, but it's not the same as a piece made from real wood.
Examine a few planks closely and look for repeating features. Knots are a good place to start, as they're relatively large and if you spot two that look exactly the same you've found your laminate smoking gun. If every plank looks unique, it's probably real wood. Look for stains and dents.
The grain patterns of softwoods are generally smoother, while hardwoods tend to be more rough and porous (maple being a notable exception). Together with the scratching, you may be able to tell which type of wood it is by looking at the grain and feeling it with your fingers.
There are two different sorts of fake wood furniture: laminate and veneer. In both cases, a surface that has the appearance of solid wood is glued to a less expensive engineered wood product hiding it from sight. The nature of the covering material is the difference between the two types.
Most Ikea furniture is made of laminate wood, which can be hard to work with but by sanding first, you'll find the job a doddle. After sanding, wipe down the furniture to get rid of the dust. Once your furniture has dried, you move onto the next step.
One of the easiest ways to tell the difference between real vs. manufactured wood furniture is the presence of grain. Real solid wood furniture will always have a distinct grain that varies in pattern across the piece. If the markings lack texture, appear smooth or repeat themselves, the piece is most likely veneer.
Hardwood floors will usually have raised graining and indented knots that can help you determine. However, high-quality vinyl floors may have these too. Hardwood flooring is a natural product and therefore each plank will be visually different and will never be perfectly symmetrical to another.
Plywood is a common example of a laminate using the same material in each layer combined with epoxy. Glued and laminated dimensional timber is used in the construction industry to make beams (glued laminated timber, or Glulam), in sizes larger and stronger than those that can be obtained from single pieces of wood.
You can sand, prime and paint laminate as if it were a solid wood piece of furniture!
Because laminate is not porous like wood, typical furniture polishes will not clean it. Believe it or not, the best way to clean laminate furniture is with soap and water. Using a warm, wet microfiber cloth, wipe down the surface to remove dust and dirt.
Since it's not actually made from wood, laminate pieces often look manufactured. The laminate gets its wood grain appearance through a printed process. Those printed sheets are then attached to a durable core material, such as MDF — medium-density fiber. Laminate pieces often have a shiny finish.
Laminate flooring can look convincingly like actual wood from a distance. But this similarity breaks down upon close inspection. With its foam underlayment and synthetic core, laminate flooring feels soft—almost springy—underfoot.
Much of the IKEA furniture is made from particle board with a smooth, white finish. This densely compressed wood provides a lighter weight piece of furniture than solid wood. There are two types of particle boards: one is extruded, and the other is platen pressed.
The grain pattern is a sure way of identifying the wood type. In practice, hardwoods such as European oak lumber or mahogany have an open poor structure while softwoods are almost smooth with zero grain indentations. Another pattern worth observing is if the wood was plain sawn or quarter sawn at the time of cutting.
The main difference between hardwood and softwood is that hardwood trees are typically slower growers and are considered angiosperm, deciduous trees (shed their leaves annually), which leads to a denser wood, whereas softwood trees are gymnosperms, meaning they are evergreen trees (do not shed their leaves).
Oil – Wood with an oil finish will absorb linseed oil. If the oil beads on the surface then the piece is most likely finished with shellac, lacquer, varnish or polyurethane. Wax – You can tell if wax has been applied by lightly scraping your finger nail in a inconspicuous area to see if a scratch mark is left.
A catalyzed varnish (also called a conversion varnish) is a type of varnish often used in high end furniture. It's heat and moisture resistant, so you don't need to worry about water rings, spills or a putting a hot cup of coffee on it. It has twice the dry film thickness over a traditional lacquer.
Make sure to search for labels, stamps, or manufacturing tags that can tell when and where a piece was made. Furniture companies and makers often listed their names, locations, and year of production This information can be found on the inside of drawers, the backs of bureaus, and on the lower edges of pieces.
If a large panel has a repeating grain pattern then it is safe to assume the item is a veneer. This is because in some cases, once the sliced sheets have been produced a process called 'matching' occurs where layers of veneer are placed together to produce an identical finish.
Traditional staining requires a porous wood surface so the stain can absorb into the finish. Since laminate furniture has a gloss finish, you can't technically stain it. But the good news is that you can paint over it with a faux stain that will be much more predictable and user-friendly than a traditional stain.
Once you are familiar with the finish you want to remove and the veneer thickness, you can start using your electric sander. Remember that veneer is really thin. With aggressive sanding, you will sand through the veneer very easily, causing irreversible damage. Always start sanding with fine-grit sandpaper (120-grit).
Veneers are natural materials made from thin natural wood slices. Laminates are artificial materials made from decorative papers and plastic resins. Veneers are made from real wood sheets in a way that each sheet gives a unique design and appearance. Laminate sheets have the same design and appearance.