Cedar and Meranti – difference in grain and colour

Finished Product

I am often asked what meranti and cedar looks like when finished.  Here is a photo. Cedar is on top, and when stained has a really lovely grain come up and through.  Meranti is usually a little redder (but can range in colour tones from near white, to almost yellow) and has a finer, more sinewy grain.  Cedar also varies quite a lot in colour tone, from yellows, reds, and reddy brown.  Cedar is a soft timber and you can easily dent it or push your fingernail into the timber.  Meranti is much harder.

Probably about 70% of our manufactured windows and doors are in cedar, followed by meranti with about 25% and then a very small percentage is a variety of other timbers like oak, blackbutt, kapur, jarrah etc.