WOOD TYPES
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Origin: Eastern Africa African Blackwood is also known as Mozambique Ebony or Senegal Ebony. It features a dark brown, even purplish heartwood with dark streaks. It is an extremely hard wood with a fine texture.
Origin: Central Africa African Mahogany is an exotic wood with a deep reddish brown color. It often has a shimmering figure. Very popular for furniture, cabinetry, joinery, boat building and veneers.
Origin: Canada & USA Birdseye maple is a rare and mysterious characteristic found in hard maple. No scientific evidence has been presented to verify the true roots of its existence. The one-of-a-kind figure is sought after in many cultures.
Origin: Southeast Asia Black & White Ebony is an exotic wood with color that is reported to vary with species, usually uniformly black with light-colored bands, pale to medium brown zones, or with marked contrast between almost white and black wood.
Origin: Southeast Asia Black Palm is an exotic wood that is hard and dense, with stringy type grain. Somewhat difficult to machine, needs sharp tools, distinctive end grain.
Origin: South America Bloodwood is an exotic wood that is sometimes referred to as cardinal wood, for its obvious beautiful deep rose color. With age it’s color does darken, but not significantly so it is a great wood to use in intarsia projects.
Origin: Central America Bocote is an exotic wood featuring a wide range of grain patterns from straight to wild, with curved lines and swirls. The color ranges from golden brown to tan to golden yellow. It is a hard, heavy, and dense wood, strong and stiff, with a medium texture.
Origin: Bolivia Bolivian Rosewood undergoes a substantial degree of color change. It offers a wide range of colors from medium to light browns through to almost black brown purplish tones, on top of which there is frequent black striping.
Origin: South Mexico Camatillo, also known as Mexican Kingwood, has purpleish heartwood and creamy white sapwood. It is very hard and dense and takes a high natural polish.
Origin: South America Canary wood is an exceptional exotic wood that is yellow to orange in color, typically variegated with light to dark red streaking. It has a medium to high luster. It can be some what variable in density, it is mostly a hard, heavy and strong wood.
Origin: North America American Black cherry is a domestic wood that is usually considered to be in the same class as mahogany for usage in the United States. It is described as wood for fine furniture.
Origin: Central America Cocobolo is an exotic wood and is favored for custom pool cues, fine furniture and cabinetry, inlays, and musical instruments. The wood is very durable and strong, with a fine texture. It is extremely beautiful, ranging in color from dark red to reddish brown.
Origin: Canada & USA Curly Maple is a traditional hard maple with a soft, flowing figure. The sugar maple is tapped for its sucrose-containing sap, the source of maple syrup. Until the turn of the century, the heels of women’s shoes were made from maple.
Origin: India East Indian Rosewood is an exotic wood and is prized for it’s use in custom pool cues, furniture, and cabinetry. The color varies from golden brown to dark purple brown, with a unique striped figure. It is hard and dense, with a coarse texture and good stability.
Origin: South America Goncalo Alves is native to South America and ranges in color from light to deep reddish-brown. It is very hard and naturally rot resistant.
Origin: Central America Granadillo is an exotic wood that is bright red to reddish or purplish brown, with rather distinct stripes. It is hard, dense, and very heavy. Granadillo wood is superior to Teak and probably Mahogany.
Origin: North America The hard maple is the state tree of Wisconsin, Vermont, New York and West Virginia. It is used in making maple syrup and has been a favorite of American furniture makers since early Colonial days.
Origin: Canada & USA Hickory is very dense and has good shock resistance and steam-bending properties. Sands, turns, stains, and polishes well.
Origin: Honduras Honduras rosewood is reported to be denser and tougher than Brazilian rosewood. Its strength properties are rated as less than outstanding, and it is usually used in applications where qualities other than strength are more desired.
Origin: North America Heavy, hard wood with an attractive color. Very strong in bending and durable when in contact with the ground.
Origin: Hawaii Koa is a wood native to Hawaii and is commonly used to make musical instruments, cabinets and different carvings. Koa is similar to Mahogany in terms of color.
Origin: South America Lacewood is reported to be often chemically treated to produce a form of Harewood, in which the background color becomes silver gray, but the broad rays retain their original color. The product of the chemical treatment is reported to be used for marquetry work.
Origin: South America Leopardwood is an exotic wood with dark reddish-brown color with strong broad rays. This material is straight grained with medium texture. The highly flecked decorative surface makes this wood ideal for furniture and accent work.
Origin: North America Red Leaf Maple is commonly called soft maple, but the name often fools many woodworkers. Soft maple is only slightly softer than hard, sugar maple. Often Red leaf maple has better color and a more interesting grain pattern.
Origin: South America Also sometimes known as “Serpentwood”, Marblewood has distinctive patterning and can be polished to a high luster. It can be somewhat difficult to work, with interlocking and coarse grain.
Origin: Europe, Africa Olivewood is an exotic wood that is hard and strong. What makes this hardwood so unique is the extraordinary grain pattern of each individual piece. It even becomes darker, richer, and more beautiful in color as it ages!
Origin: South America Osage Orange (Argentine) is an exotic wood from South America that is very dense. It is popular for turnery, handles, musical instruments and custom bows.
Origin: West Africa Padauk is an exotic wood that is a bright orange or almost crimson wood when freshly cut, but oxidizes to a darker, rich purple-brown over time. It often grows in small groups and is reported to be common in dense equatorial rain forests.
Origin: Central America Purpleheart is an exotic wood with mechanical properties of the wood are reported to lie somewhere between those of Greenheart and Oak. It is reported to have exceptional tolerance for shock loading.
Origin: North America Oak is regarded as one of the most beautiful woods to work with because of its grain pattern and character. Oak is used in many woodworking applications, including steam bending. Air-dry bending and crushing strengths are high.
Origin: Africa Sapele is an exotic wood from West, Central, and Eastern Africa. Some consider it as a utility substitute for mahogany due to the fact that it belongs to the same Meliaceae family.
Origin: South America Snakewood is an exotic wood known technically as piratinera guianensis, snakewood comes from a small, relatively ravre tree found in the forests of Central and South America. Initially deep red in color, snakewood changes its stripes (so to speak) upon being exposed to air, which makes the wood eventually turn reddish brown.
Origin: South America Tornillo grows in the Loreton Huanuco provinces of Peru and in the humid terra firma of the Brazilian Amazon region. The heartwood is pale brown with a golden luster. Texture is coarse and the wood is comparable in strength to the American elm.
Origin: North America Walnut is a hard, tough wood prized as a cabinet making wood. It is also popular in the United States for gunstocks and rifle butts. Quality furniture, musical instrument, turnery, and carving also sees the use of walnut.
Origin: Africa Wenge is an exotic wood with a natural growth range of the species is reported to be the open forests of Zaire, Cameroon, Gabon, the southern regions of Tanzania, and Mozambique. It is also found in the swampy forests of the Congo region.
Origin: North America Oak is regarded as one of the most beautiful woods work with because of its grain pattern and character. Oak is used in many woodworking applications, including steam bending. Hardness is rated as medium, and weight is high.
Origin: South America Yellowheart, an exotic wood also called Pau Amarello, can grow to more than 130 feet tall and 30” in diameter. It has large leaves upwards of 10” long and 4” wide. It has a wonderful show of creamy white, fragrant flowers. Pau Amarello trees are found almost exclusively in the State of Para, Brazil.
Origin: West Africa Zebrawood is an exotic wood native to the Western African countries of Cameroon and Gabon. It is a hard wood, with a medium to coarse texture. The Zebra-like appearance is due to the light colored sapwood in contrast with the dark colored grain.