Tropical wood · Tropical America
Bagasse wood
Bagasse (Bagassa guianensis, family Moraceae) is a tropical timber from tropical America. Dry, its Janka hardness is 1,730 lbf (7,695 N), and air-dry it weighs about 50 lb/ft³ (801 kg/m³). The figures are from the USDA Forest Products Laboratory's Tropical Timbers of the World, pp. 37–38.
Other names, by country: Cow-wood (Guyana), Gele bagasse (Surinam), Bagasse jaune (French Guiana), Tatajuba, Amapá-rana (Brazil).
Key numbers
- Janka hardness, dry
- 1,730 lbf (7,695 N)
- Green: 1,670 lbf (7,429 N)
- As printed: “Janka side hardness 1,670 lb for green wood and 1,730 lb for dry.”
- Air-dry density
- 50 lb/ft³ (801 kg/m³)
- Basic specific gravity
- 0.68 oven-dry weight, green volume
- As printed: “Basic specific gravity (ovendry weight/green volume) averages 0.68. Air-dry density averages 50 pcf.”
- Shrinkage, green to oven-dry
- 6.6% tangential
- Radial 5.2%, volumetric 10.2%
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 2 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 | 14,510 psi (100 MPa) | 2.3 million psi (15.9 GPa) | 7,900 psi (54 MPa) |
| 12% MC | 20,050 psi (138 MPa) | 2.58 million psi (17.8 GPa) | 11,560 psi (80 MPa) |
A dash means the sheet prints no value; none is filled in.
What the data sheet says
- Color, grain and texture
- Unseasoned heartwood is yellow, often streaked with brown, becoming lustrous golden-brown to russet on exposure. Sapwood is narrow, sharply demarcated, pale yellow to yellowish-white. Grain usually interlocked resulting in a rather broad stripe; texture medium to coarse, moderately uniform; odor and taste not distinctive when seasoned.
- Working properties
- Easy to saw and finishes smoothly.
- Durability
- Heartwood is reported to be very durable when exposed to either white-rot or brown-rot fungi; slightly resistant to marine borers. Weathering characteristics are considered poor.
- Uses
- Wood used locally for general building purposes, heavy construction, furniture, boat construction. Because of its high resilience, it may be suitable for some types of sporting equipment. Wood is similar to black locust and could be used as a substitute for some applications.
- Where it grows
- Rather infrequent occurrence in the Guianas and the Brazilian Amazon.
Quoted from Tropical Timbers of the World, pp. 37–38, 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 bagasse against other woods on hardness, weight, movement and color, every figure from the Wood Handbook.