Some facts about our timber
Our inserts are made of hardwood types exclusively. Those answer perfectly to our demand for a durable and sustainable working material. You may select from timbers as maple, beech, oak, ash, walnut, smoked oak or wengé.
Maple: light, serene, fine grain
We process American or Canadian hard maple. The color of the wood is white to yellowish. Particularly fine-pored, maple is a perfect material for the making of our drawer inserts. With its calm, fine grain maple-made furnishings have an elegant subtle look.
Beech: reddish tone, warm temper - everybody's darling
Beech wood coming from middle and eastern Europe is a hardwood, too. It still counts among the most popular materials used in the kitchen industries. Front panels, drawers or inserts: the beech is on the premises! Beech stands for an affordable price seconding a charming warm reddish color, a feel-good atmosphere and the peculiarity to harmonize with most home furnitures.
Oak: light brown, warm tone - worth the current revival
Our North American oak has a distinctive brownish color and is very hard. The first decades of the new millennium had proved difficult for this species. Currently oak is to celebrate a breathtaking comeback. The kitchen industry appreciates its natural color or diversifies with cascading tones using wood stain to obtain darker colors of the gamut.
Smoked oak: stained dark brown - favy of urbanites and hipsters
Smoked oak is the name for raw oak wood that undergoes a transformation. In a first step, the wood is stained dark brown. Secondly it gets varnished with clear lacquer. The dark brown tone may appear cozier than the dark black ash tone. Thanks to the large pores of the oak, the solid wood character is especially carved out.
Ash: an often underrated beauty - rediscover a lovely smooth color gradient
Recently, furniture markets apparently prefer oak to ash. Sure, there is no accounting for taste. However, experience taught us: ash wood is worth consideration. Experts enjoy its wonderful smooth color gradient with a yellowish-brown changing softly into medium or dark brown tones near the core. Stratmann uses colored ash, a blend of heartwood and sapwood to confer a vivid modern looking veneer pattern to the cutlery inserts.
Black lacquered ash: same wood, different look
Here our aim is to visualize the timber's large-pored structure so to preserve the ash wood's individual character. We have the timber stained black first and we add clear varnish as a coating. Since Stratmann inserts are destined for daily use, the coatings help to protect the products from scratches and damage.
Walnut: an all-rounder rooted to the soil
For drawer inserts Stratmann uses timber cut from American walnut. Compared to its European relatives, the transatlantic species delivers a darker color. While walnut heartwood usually displays shades of a dark brown, the sapwood can present an astonishing light toning. For a long time, walnut sapwood was almost completely banned from manufacturing processes. Nowadays a heartwood/sapwood blend of about 80:20 is accepted. It is this very color contrast that expresses best the wood's character.
African wengé: black is beautiful
Wengé wood presents a deep dark veneer pattern reaching from dark brown to almost black. The species' sapwood has got a rather light color. At Stratmann, only the core wood of wengé is processed. Wengé wood is heavy and hard, suitable for drawer inserts and interior furnishings. It is counted among the most expensive timbers, but at the same time it represents certainly one of the most appealing species.
