Tropical wood · Southeast Asia and Oceania
Broad-leaved Tea-tree wood
Broad-leaved Tea-tree (Melaleuca quinquenervia, family Myrtaceae) is a tropical timber from Southeast Asia and Oceania. Green, its Janka hardness is 1,530 lbf (6,806 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. 681–682.
Other names, by country: Gelam (Malaya), Niaouli (New Caledonia), Cajeput (U.S.A.), Paper-bark (Australia).
Key numbers
- Janka hardness, dry
- Not printed
- Green: 1,530 lbf (6,806 N)
- As printed: “Janka side hardness 1,530 lb for green material.”
- Air-dry density
- 50 lb/ft³ (801 kg/m³)
- Basic specific gravity
- 0.65 oven-dry weight, green volume
- As printed: “Basic specific gravity (ovendry weight/green volume) 0.65; air-dry density 50 pcf.”
- Shrinkage, green to oven-dry
- 9.5% tangential
- Radial 4.0%, volumetric 16.2%
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 one data set, each at the moisture content printed beside it, never restated as 12%.
| Moisture | Bending strength (MOR) | Stiffness (MOE) | Crushing strength |
|---|---|---|---|
| Green | 11,900 psi (82 MPa) | — | 5,920 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 pinkish-brown; sapwood paler and rather ill-defined. Grain straight to irregular or wavy; texture fine and uniform; lustrous; without distinctive odor or taste.
- Working properties
- Readily worked with hand and machine tools and takes a good finish. Rather rapid dulling of cutters is reported. A silica content of 0.20-0.95% is reported.
- Durability
- Heartwood durable in ground contact; also resistant to termite attack and marine borer activity. Sapwood liable to powder-post beetle attack.
- Uses
- Carvings, cabinetwork, boatbuilding, fencing, railroad crossties, mine props, marquetry, veneers, gun stocks. The leaves are distilled to yield an oil used for medicinal purposes; corky bark flakes have also been used for insulation as well as stuffing for pillows, etc.
- Where it grows
- Native to eastern Australia, Malay Archipelago, New Caledonia, and New Guinea; grows in pure stands on wet coastal flats and brackish swamps. The tree has been widely planted in other tropical and subtropical areas, often becoming naturalized.
Quoted from Tropical Timbers of the World, pp. 681–682, a USDA Forest Products Laboratory work in the public domain.
Work it out for your project
- Rank woods for cabinets and trim with the species picker
Weigh broad-leaved Tea-tree against other woods on hardness, weight, movement and color, every figure from the Wood Handbook.