Betterwood » Advice » Wood panels » Finger jointing
Finger-jointed means that two solid wood parts interlock and are glued together by wedge-shaped tines. This creates an extremely stable and virtually distortion-free connection between shorter pieces of wood to form a theoretically infinitely long piece of wood.
This method is used for glued wood panels, for example. They are available with continuous slats and finger-jointed slats. With continuous slats, the individual wooden strips are glued together lengthwise and continue through to the end of the board. With finger-jointed glulam panels, the individual lamellas are also finger-jointed together lengthwise. What are the differences?
From a technical point of view, there are no major advantages or disadvantages between continuous and finger-jointed glulam panels. However, finger-jointed galvanized panels can be much more stable. With some tropical wood species, finger-jointing is also advantageous for another reason: the use of shorter pieces of wood, which are then finger-jointed, significantly reduces the risk of warping.
Tropical wood species are significantly denser than domestic wood species – this is the reason for their enormous durability. However, they also tend to warp when temperatures fluctuate. The care and processing instructions must therefore be observed in order to minimize the risk.
Continuous glulam panels are usually no longer than two meters and in most cases rather shorter – at least as far as teak panels are concerned. Finger-jointing makes it possible to produce longer panels that can be up to three meters long.
In the production of glulam panels, care is taken to ensure that the wooden strips used are similar in color and match each other. This is particularly important for finger-jointed glulam panels in order to achieve the smoothest possible surface appearance – despite the color changes typical of wood.
Finger-jointed glulam panels are a more sustainable and resource-saving product. Shorter pieces of wood can also be used in production, so that as much of the tree as possible is processed.
This is not possible with continuous slats. This also explains the price differences between continuous and finger-jointed wood panels: the offcut – the useless “waste” – in the production of continuous glulam panels is many times greater. As a result, such boards are generally more expensive than finger-jointed comparable products.
