Tropical wood · Tropical America
Bitter Angelim wood
Bitter Angelim (Vatairea spp., family Leguminosae) is a tropical timber from tropical America. Dry, its Janka hardness is 1,080–1,420 lbf (4,804–6,316 N), and air-dry it weighs about 42–49 lb/ft³ (673–785 kg/m³). The figures are from the USDA Forest Products Laboratory's Tropical Timbers of the World, pp. 307–308.
Other names, by country: Amargoso (Honduras), Amargo amargo (Panama), Arisauru, Yaksaru (Guyana), Mora (Nicaragua), Gele Kabbes (Surinam), Angelim, Faveira (Brazil).
Key numbers
- Janka hardness, dry
- 1,080–1,420 lbf (4,804–6,316 N)
- As printed: “Janka side hardness for dry material 1,080 to 1,420 lb.”
- Air-dry density
- 42–49 lb/ft³ (673–785 kg/m³)
- Basic specific gravity
- 0.55–0.64 oven-dry weight, green volume
- As printed: “Basic specific gravity (ovendry weight/green volume) varies with species from 0.55 to 0.64; air-dry density 42 to 49 pcf.”
- Shrinkage, green to oven-dry
- 7.4% tangential
- Radial 3.4%, volumetric 8.6%
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 4 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 | 10,300 psi (71 MPa) | 1.7 million psi (11.7 GPa) | 5,020 psi (35 MPa) |
| 12% MC | 14,600 psi (101 MPa) | 1.79 million psi (12.3 GPa) | 6,950 psi (48 MPa) |
| 12% MC | 17,200 psi (119 MPa) | 2.34 million psi (16.1 GPa) | — |
| 15% MC | 11,520 psi (79 MPa) | 1.46 million psi (10.1 GPa) | 5,900 psi (41 MPa) |
A dash means the sheet prints no value; none is filled in.
What the data sheet says
- Color, grain and texture
- Heartwood yellow, becoming orange-brown on exposure, striped with parenchyma, sometimes with oily appearance; distinct from the whitish, grayish, or brownish-yellow sapwood. Luster variable; texture coarse to very coarse; grain straight to strongly inter-locked; without distinctive odor but with bitter taste. Silica content of 0.2% is reported.
- Working properties
- Generally reported to be moderately good in machining characteristics but torn and raised grain in planing is common. Fine dust raised during working affects some operators.
- Durability
- Heartwood is rated as moderately durable to durable based on graveyard tests.
- Uses
- Construction work, flooring, general carpentry, railroad crossties.
- Where it grows
- Southern Mexico, southward along the Atlantic region of Central America, and through Venezuela to the Rio de Janeiro region of Brazil.
Quoted from Tropical Timbers of the World, pp. 307–308, a USDA Forest Products Laboratory work in the public domain.
Work it out for your project
- Rank woods for flooring with the species picker
Weigh bitter Angelim against other woods on hardness, weight, movement and color, every figure from the Wood Handbook.