Timber Grades
Furniture is generally manufactured using appearance grades hardwoods. These fall into three categories as specified in AS2796.3:

• Select Grade (SEL)
  
• Medium Feature Grade (MF)
  
• High Feature Grade (HF)
  
  Each grade varies according to the amount of natural features in the timber such as knots, gum veins, borer holes and bush fire markings. Select has the minimum amount of features while high feature has the most. (Refer to Figure 1). Though select grade offers the closest thing to a homogeneous product for manufacturing, medium and high feature grades offer qualities suited to crafted products – especially where trying to show off raw characteristics. These grades also tend to offer a greater range of sizes.