swietenia macrophylla wood

Uses: Fine furnitureand cabinet making, interior trim, paneling, fancy veneers, musicalinstruments, boat building, pattern making, turnery, and carving.

Preservation: Bothheartwood and sapwood are resistant to impregnation with preservatives.

Durability:Generally heartwood rates as durable in resistance to a brown-rot and awhite-rot fungus.  Moderatelyresistant to dry-wood termites and little resistance attack by marine borers.

Working Properties:Very easy to work with hand and machine tools, torn and chipped grain is commonwith figured material.  Easy tofinish and takes an excellent polish Slices and rotary cuts into fine veneer.

Drying and Shrinkage:The wood can be air-seasoned and kiln-dried easily without appreciable warpingor checking.  Kiln schedule T6-D4is suggested for 4/4 stock and T3-D3 for 8/4.  Shrinkage green to ovendry: radial 3.0%; tangential 4.1%;volumetric 7.8%.  Movement aftermanufacture is rated as small.

Janka side hardness 740 lb for green material and 800 lb fordry.  Forest Products Laboratorytoughness average for green and dry material 82 in.-lb (5/8-in. specimen).

12% (42)                    12,000                                    1,270                          6,400

12%                            11,460                                     1,500                  6,780

Green (73)                  8,960                          1,340                  4,340

12%                            11,590                                    1,420                  6,470

Green (73)                  8,960                          1,280                  4,340

            (%)                  (Psi)               (1,000 psi)                  (Psi)

Moisture content  Bending strength  Modulus of elasticity  Maximum crushing strength

Mechanical Properties:(First two sets of data based on the 2-in.  standard, the third on the 2-cm standard.)

Weight: Basicspecific gravity (ovendry weight/green volume) 0.40 to 0.68; air- dry density30 to 52 pcf.

General Characteristics: Heartwood reddish, pinkish, salmon colored, or yellowish when fresh;deepening with age to deep rich red or brown; distinct from the yellowish orwhitish sapwood.  Luster high andgolden; texture rather fine to coarse; grain straight to roey, wavy, or curly,often with an attractive figure; odor and taste not distinctive.

The Wood:

The Tree: Sometimes150 ft in height and 6 ft and more in diameter above the heavy buttresses;boles are clear from 60 to 80 ft.

Distribution: Guatemala southward to Colombia, Venezuela, and parts of the upper Amazonand its tributaries in Peru, Bolivia, and Brazil.  Plantations have been established within its natural rangeand elsewhere.

Other Common Names:Caoba (throughout Latin America), Acajou.

Swietenia macrophylla
Family: Meliaceae
Honduras Mahogany
Caoba