Wood

Wood can be split down into 3 main sections, Hard wood, Soft wood and Manufactured boards.

Hard Woods
-slow growing
-expensive in price
-usualy quater sawn
-generaly quite dence
-comes from deciduose trees

Soft Woods
-grow much faster than a hardwood
-cheaper to buy due to the renewability
-less dence than hardwoods in most cases
-comes from a coniferous tree.


When purchasing wood there are a number of things you must consider,
-physical strength, is the material right for the job, strong wood for support beams eg.

-aesthetic properties, materials like walnut look good so they are used in expensive furniture more than wood like pine

-moisture content, the moisture content in wood is very important as it will begin to twist or cup along the anual rings as it is dryed. the closer to the pift the timber is the more it could cup.

-protection, if the wood is going to be spending most of it lifes out doors then it must be protected. wood will rot due to the fibres sucking up moisture and this can lead to deteriation of the wood. so protection like varnish and stains must be applied.

-cost, wood is not cheap espeshaly hard woods so you must consider what the product will be used for and purchase the right priced wood for the purpose intended.

-enviromental issues, tree are renewable but they are governed by the FSC, The Forestry Stewardship Council. they make sure that for every tree cut down, 2 are planted in its place.

A Poduct I Should'nt Of Purchased

During the course of the past year I purchased a 2GB MP3 player designed and sold by the Dutch electronic company Phillips. The product retailed for £49 and featured MP3 playback, the ability to play videos, photo viewer and a FM radio.
The product is small and fits easily into a pocket and it easy to hold in the hand of the owner. For the price it seemed very reasonable but the problems quickly arose no sooner than after I had uploaded songs from my computer’s Itunes straight into the players hard drive.
The fact that it does not update the files straight away can be very frustrating. This is a huge flaw in the products software especially if the consumer is in a hurry and the useless black square hasn’t realised new music has been uploaded.
This is by far not the half of it. In the advert by the company its self, it stated that the product will feature a portable DAB radio which is what sold the product for me as from what I have seen on the market portable DAB radios are a lot more expensive than £49. The fact that when I called to complain, Phillips still ignorantly insisted that their product did have a digital radio and was the best one on the market was incredible frustrating and annoying.
The mp3 player’s software is slow and finding songs is a long and tedious process. It often freezes and locks up meaning I would then have to perform a master reset, loosing all my music and settings.
To this day I still regret purchasing the product and have only used it on occasion when my Ipod is out of battery which rarely happens.
I recommend this product to absolutely no one and would urge Phillips to remove it from the market.