The Effect of Sappanwood Absorbance on Design Decisions

Sappan wood contains substances that have health benefits. The community has made use of sappan wood in various forms, such as powder and shavings. In addition, sappan products are found in the form of blocks and spindles. If the product is in the form of blocks or logs, then people can recognize several characteristics of a wood, such as color, texture, hardness and weight. This will be more difficult to do if the product is in the form of powder or shavings. These advantages can be utilized in forms that have a specific purpose, such as the use function and decoration function. The use function can be done by soaking sappan wood using water, at a certain temperature and time. The process will produce a solution with a certain content which can be measured based on the absorbance value. The decoration function can be carried out by forming the sappan wood using the chisel principle, reducing the volume of raw materials. This research was conducted to determine the impact of shape on the concentration of content in sappan wood, so that it produces considerations that can be used in designing a product made from sappan wood. Experiments were carried out on 4 types of treatments, N specimens representing the treatment of repeated use, LPA and LPB specimens representing different surface area treatments, and specimens V representing treatments with different volumes. Each treatment produced a solution which was measured using UV-Vis Spectorphotometry. The measurement results in each specimen solution show the absorbance value can be taken into consideration in designing a product made from sappan wood. The things that need to be considered are the distance between cavities, product thickness and material cutting patterns.