Tropical wood · Africa
Gedu Nohor wood
Gedu Nohor (Entandrophragma angolense, family Meliaceae) is a tropical timber from Africa. Dry, its Janka hardness is 940 lbf (4,181 N), and air-dry it weighs about 34 lb/ft³ (545 kg/m³). The figures are from the USDA Forest Products Laboratory's Tropical Timbers of the World, pp. 399–400.
Other names, by country: Mukusu (Uganda), Tiama (Ivory Coast), Edinam (Ghana), Kalungi (Zaire).
Key numbers
- Janka hardness, dry
- 940 lbf (4,181 N)
- Green: 770 lbf (3,425 N)
- As printed: “Janka side hardness 770 lb for green material and 940 lb for dry.”
- Air-dry density
- 34 lb/ft³ (545 kg/m³)
- Basic specific gravity
- 0.45 oven-dry weight, green volume
- As printed: “Basic specific gravity (ovendry weight/green volume) 0.45; air-dry density 34 pcf.”
- Shrinkage, green to oven-dry
- 6.6% tangential
- Radial 4.7%, volumetric 11.8%
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 | 7,500 psi (52 MPa) | 1 million psi (6.9 GPa) | 3,680 psi (25 MPa) |
| 12% MC | 11,200 psi (77 MPa) | 1.25 million psi (8.6 GPa) | 6,550 psi (45 MPa) |
| 12% MC | 12,300 psi (85 MPa) | 1.6 million psi (11 GPa) | 7,400 psi (51 MPa) |
A dash means the sheet prints no value; none is filled in.
What the data sheet says
- Color, grain and texture
- Heartwood pink-brown or a dull uniform red, usually darkening on exposure to a deep red-brown; sapwood creamy-white or pale pink, up to 4 in. wide, sometimes not sharply demarcated. Grain interlocked, producing rather broad stripes; texture medium to rather coarse; without taste and almost without odor.
- Working properties
- Works rather easily with hand and machine tools, but there is tearing of interlocked grain, otherwise a good finish is obtained in most operations. Good gluing properties.
- Durability
- Heartwood is rated as moderately durable, termite resistance is variable. Sapwood liable to attack by powder-post beetle.
- Uses
- Furniture, joinery, cabinetmaking, boat construction, decorative veneers and plywood.
- Where it grows
- West, Central, and East Africa; occurs in rain forests, deciduous forests, and transitional formations. Coppices freely at the pole stage.
Quoted from Tropical Timbers of the World, pp. 399–400, 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 gedu Nohor against other woods on hardness, weight, movement and color, every figure from the Wood Handbook.