Tropical wood · Southeast Asia and Oceania
Australian Blackwood wood
Australian Blackwood (Acacia melanoxylon, family Leguminosae) is a tropical timber from Southeast Asia and Oceania. Dry, its Janka hardness is 1,100 lbf (4,893 N), and air-dry it weighs about 40 lb/ft³ (641 kg/m³). The figures are from the USDA Forest Products Laboratory's Tropical Timbers of the World, pp. 541–542.
Other names, by country: None.
Key numbers
- Janka hardness, dry
- 1,100 lbf (4,893 N)
- Green: 950 lbf (4,226 N)
- As printed: “Janka side hardness 950 lb for green material and 1,100 lb at 12% moisture content.”
- Air-dry density
- 40 lb/ft³ (641 kg/m³)
- Basic specific gravity
- 0.57 oven-dry weight, green volume
- As printed: “Basic specific gravity (ovendry weight/green volume) 0.57; air-dry density 40 pcf.”
- Shrinkage, green to oven-dry
- 9.0% tangential
- Radial 3.4%
One source: USDA Forest Products Laboratory, Tropical Timbers of the World (Chudnoff, 1979 edition), the only published source read for this wood
Strength
Bending strength is the modulus of rupture (MOR); stiffness is the modulus of elasticity (MOE); crushing strength is compression parallel to the grain. The sheet collects these from published tests: it prints 3 data sets, from different tests and sources, so they can differ widely; all are shown, in the sheet's order, each at the moisture content printed beside it, never restated as 12%.
| Moisture | Bending strength (MOR) | Stiffness (MOE) | Crushing strength |
|---|---|---|---|
| Green | 10,400 psi (72 MPa) | 1.71 million psi (11.8 GPa) | 4,880 psi (34 MPa) |
| 12% MC | 15,900 psi (110 MPa) | 2.05 million psi (14.1 GPa) | 8,420 psi (58 MPa) |
| 12% MC | 14,600 psi (101 MPa) | 2.21 million psi (15.2 GPa) | — |
A dash means the sheet prints no value; none is filled in.
What the data sheet says
- Color, grain and texture
- Heartwood golden to dark brown, sometimes with a reddish tinge; dark streaks mark the growth zones; sharply demarcated from the straw-colored sapwood. Lustrous; texture fine to medium; grain usually straight, sometimes interlocked or wavy; without distinctive odor or taste.
- Working properties
- The timber is easy to work with hand or machine tools; can be steam bent easily down to a 3-in. radius; glues and stains well and can be highly polished.
- Durability
- Durability of heartwood is reported as intermediate and is readily attacked by termites; sapwood is moderately susceptible to lyctus attack.
- Uses
- Fine furniture and cabinet wood, fancy veneers, interior joinery, bentwork, turnery, tight cooperage, gunstocks, musical instruments.
- Where it grows
- Eastern Australia from Queensland southward to Victoria and also in Tasmania. Introduced into East and South Africa, India, Ceylon, Chile, and Argentina.
Quoted from Tropical Timbers of the World, pp. 541–542, a USDA Forest Products Laboratory work in the public domain.
Work it out for your project
- Rank woods for furniture with the species picker
Weigh australian Blackwood against other woods on hardness, weight, movement and color, every figure from the Wood Handbook.