Tropical wood · Tropical America
Gommier wood
Gommier (Dacryodes excelsa, family Burseraceae) is a tropical timber from tropical America. Dry, its Janka hardness is 900 lbf (4,003 N), and air-dry it weighs about 40 lb/ft³ (641 kg/m³). The figures are from the USDA Forest Products Laboratory's Tropical Timbers of the World, pp. 111–112.
Other names, by country: Tabonuco (Puerto Rico), Gommier blanc (Guadeloupe), Gommier montagne (Martinique).
Key numbers
- Janka hardness, dry
- 900 lbf (4,003 N)
- Green: 690 lbf (3,069 N)
- As printed: “Janka side hardness 690 lb for green material and 900 lb at 12% moisture content.”
- Air-dry density
- 40 lb/ft³ (641 kg/m³)
- Basic specific gravity
- 0.52 oven-dry weight, green volume
- As printed: “Basic specific gravity (ovendry weight/green volume) 0.52; air-dry density 40 pcf.”
- Shrinkage, green to oven-dry
- 6.4% tangential
- Radial 4.1%, volumetric 10.5%
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 | 9,330 psi (64 MPa) | 1.2 million psi (8.3 GPa) | 4,530 psi (31 MPa) |
| 12% MC | 13,030 psi (90 MPa) | 1.53 million psi (10.5 GPa) | 7,150 psi (49 MPa) |
A dash means the sheet prints no value; none is filled in.
What the data sheet says
- Color, grain and texture
- Heartwood is a uniform pale brown with a purplish cast when first cut turning to a lustrous pinkish-brown when seasoned, resembling mahogany; clearly demarcated from narrow grayish sapwood. Texture fine to medium; grain more or less roey with attractive ribbon stripe; odor and taste lacking. Silica content of 0.50% is reported.
- Working properties
- A moderately good machining wood; cuts and saws easily but because of an abundance of silica, rapidly dulls saw teeth and other cutting edges. The wood finishes smoothly and is easy to lacquer or varnish.
- Durability
- The heartwood is only slightly resistant to attack by decay fungi when in ground contact and is very susceptible to attack by dry-wood termites; not resistant to marine borer attack.
- Uses
- Furniture and cabinet work, possible veneer wood, general construction. The trees are scarred near the base to obtain a fragrant resin exudate used to make candles and for medicinal purposes.
- Where it grows
- Puerto Rico and Lesser Antilles from St. Kitts to Grenada. Generally in small groups along upper slopes, but forms almost pure stands at high elevations in Dominica.
Quoted from Tropical Timbers of the World, pp. 111–112, 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 gommier against other woods on hardness, weight, movement and color, every figure from the Wood Handbook.