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About Our Products
The wood has endured and absorbed history.
Using extraordinary materials, Tropical Salvage applies skillful construction techniques to build simple, sturdy, functional designs. Every piece is made of solid wood and expresses the unique appearance, stories and meaning of salvaged woods.
As the woods are old and from trees felled in the past when ecosystems expressed more diversity and were populated by mature, wild trees, the grains often have attractive characteristics that are less common to see in trees cut from managed forests today. Age has favored many of the grains with rich patina, and the wood's wild origins are remembered by unusually beautiful figure.
The woods are keepers of history. We integrate into our designs whatever the woods have previously been or endured. Original doors, shutters and carvings; marks from nails, repeated use or insects; colors in entombed and river salvage grains derived from mineral absorption: they are all part of the wood's historical drama. Some of the entombed wood grains are so richly colored and figured they appear to be captured images of the wild geological events that caused their fate. Something about the stolid patience of wood that has silently witnessed generations of human folly and triumph commands our respect and contemplation. Trees buried by mud-flows caused by volcanic eruptions and entombed for centuries command our astonishment.
In addition to its solid construction, unique history and good value, sales of Tropical Salvage furniture generates resolute social and environmental activism. We look to the same instinct to consume that has driven us, at times, to compromise our respect for labor and natural environments; and ask it to contribute to restoring respect. By nature, people are traders and seekers of convenience. We intend to simply adjust the scope of priorities in which these activities occur.
The Finish & Hardware
We finish all of our furniture with a traditional Indonesian shellac called ambolo. To create the finish, we take the solids from a species of termite that exists mainly in Sumatran wild forests and blend it with denatured sugar cane alcohol. We like also to call it "bug-rum." Bug-rum finish is entirely natural.
Tropical Salvage furniture fixtures, such as hinges and drawer pulls, are crafted from recycled brass. The brass is sourced from deconstructed ocean vessels.
The Carvings
Some Tropical Salvage furniture is hand-carved, using a mallet and set of chisels numbering more than forty, with decorative images. Click here to see some samples, and to find out more.
Pricing
Tropical Salvage furniture comes at an excellent value. We have traveled the world, been to the trade shows and spoken with our customers: nowhere have we encountered solid wood furniture at a better price. Also, no competitor tells a sourcing story as rich, uses woods as expressive, applies artisanal skill as uniquely, and practices social and environmental responsibility as assiduously as we do.
To get retail prices, please contact your nearest Tropical Salvage vendor.
Care Instructions
For information on how to care for your Tropical Salvage furniture, click here.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you know that all of the wood really comes from salvage?
We salvage the wood ourselves. Tropical Salvage wood-salvage teams scour the Indonesian archipelago year-round, supplying our furniture production. We do not purchase any wood from outside parties.
Which species of wood do you use?
Many different species of wood go into our products. Over nine years, we have used nearly fifty species in production. The number will increase as demand grows and we venture further afield. One of our greatest challenges when we started was to figure out how to kiln-dry, shape and combine the dozens of different tropical hardwoods that we salvaged in order to create furniture that was durable and attractive. We have built up a unique body of knowledge through years of trial and error.
Some species that we commonly use include teak, ingas, acacia, jackfruit, munggur, wunggu, waru, coffee, cacao, sonokeling (rosewood), laban, assam and gintungan.
Is the wood FSC-certified?
The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and similar certifications were created to assure buyers that certified wood was cut from sustainably managed, socially beneficial forests or plantations. By and large, this does not apply to Tropical Salvage, because our wood does not come from forests. None of our wood is cut from standing trees, period.
We have been in communication with the FSC and the Rainforest Alliance, and some of our woods could be certified under a variety of different standards. Recycled wood, such as our demolition salvage, could be FSC-certified, while the Rainforest Alliance has its own, separate standard that could apply to our underwater salvage and plantation cull wood. For the present, we are choosing not to pursue any of these certifications, because the costs are high and they would not apply to all of our wood.
We pay close attention to the impacts of our wood-salvaging operations. They are completely in line with FSC's Principles. All of our salvaging is legal, certainly; in fact, the Indonesian government's forest agency often invites us to take wood from certain salvage sites. We carefully evaluate every potential salvage site, and only go forward when we are satisfied that salvaging will have no significant negative environmental impact.
Do you use a non-toxic finish?
Our ambolo finish is all-natural and relatively very low in toxicity. The formula is simple: we mix pure shellac flakes with a denatured alcohol solvent, which is 94 percent sugar cane ethanol and 6 percent methanol.
The alcohol solvent evaporates quickly, so off-gassing is minimal after the finishing process is completed. Ethanol and methanol are technically volatile organic compounds (VOC), so ambolo is not a low-VOC finish. However, the health effects of alcohols are minimal and well-known. We never use the seriously hazardous VOC's that are found in other wood finishes, such as formaldehyde, petroleum distillates and ketones.
Green Seal's "Choose Green: Wood Finishes and Stains" contains a lot of information about the health and environmental impacts of wood finishes.
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