Tropical wood · Southeast Asia and Oceania
Chickrassy wood
Chickrassy (Chukrasia tabularis, family Meliaceae) is a tropical timber from Southeast Asia and Oceania. Dry, its Janka hardness is 1,310 lbf (5,827 N), and air-dry it weighs about 42 lb/ft³ (673 kg/m³). The figures are from the USDA Forest Products Laboratory's Tropical Timbers of the World, pp. 591–592.
Other names, by country: Boga porna, Lal devderi, Aglay (India), Yinma (Burma), Repoh (Malaya).
Key numbers
- Janka hardness, dry
- 1,310 lbf (5,827 N)
- Green: 1,060 lbf (4,715 N)
- As printed: “Janka side hardness 1,060 lb for green material and 1,310 lb for dry.”
- Air-dry density
- 42 lb/ft³ (673 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 42 pcf.”
- Shrinkage, green to oven-dry
- 6.0% tangential
- Radial 3.9%, volumetric 10.9%
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 | 8,380 psi (58 MPa) | 1.19 million psi (8.2 GPa) | 4,040 psi (28 MPa) |
| 13% MC | 11,940 psi (82 MPa) | 1.57 million psi (10.8 GPa) | 6,870 psi (47 MPa) |
A dash means the sheet prints no value; none is filled in.
What the data sheet says
- Color, grain and texture
- Heartwood yellowish-red to red, aging to a yellowishor reddish-brown; sapwood yellowish or light buff, grading into the heartwood. Lustrous with a satiny sheen; texture moderately fine; grain irregularly interlocked, wavy, figured; fragrant odor when fresh but without characteristic odor or taste when dry.
- Working properties
- The wood saws and machines easily and works well with hand tools; finishes smoothly and polishes well.
- Durability
- Rated as nondurable and reports on resistance to termite attack varies from moderately resistant to liable to attack.
- Uses
- Furniture, decorative veneers, paneling, carving, turnery, cooperage.
- Where it grows
- India, Burma, Indo-China, and southwards to the Malay Peninsula and Borneo.
Quoted from Tropical Timbers of the World, pp. 591–592, 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 chickrassy against other woods on hardness, weight, movement and color, every figure from the Wood Handbook.