Tropical wood · Tropical America
Gumbo-limbo wood
Gumbo-limbo (Bursera simaruba, family Burseraceae) is a tropical timber from tropical America. Dry, its Janka hardness is 270 lbf (1,201 N), and air-dry it weighs about 19–30 lb/ft³ (304–481 kg/m³). The figures are from the USDA Forest Products Laboratory's Tropical Timbers of the World, pp. 57–58.
Other names, by country: Turpentine tree (Jamaica), Gommier blanc (Haiti), Chaca, Palo china (Mexico), Carate (Panama, Colombia), Caraña, Indio desnudo (Venezuela).
Key numbers
- Janka hardness, dry
- 270 lbf (1,201 N)
- Green: 230 lbf (1,023 N)
- As printed: “Janka side hardness reported to be 270 lb air dry and 230 lb for green wood.”
- Air-dry density
- 19–30 lb/ft³ (304–481 kg/m³)
- Basic specific gravity
- 0.30–0.38 oven-dry weight, green volume
- As printed: “Basic specific gravity (ovendry weight/green volume) 0.30 to 0.38; air-dry density reported to range from 19 to 30 pcf.”
- Shrinkage, green to oven-dry
- 4.2% tangential
- Radial 2.6%, volumetric 7.3%
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 | 3,300 psi (23 MPa) | 0.56 million psi (3.9 GPa) | 1,510 psi (10 MPa) |
| 12% MC | 4,800 psi (33 MPa) | 0.74 million psi (5.1 GPa) | 3,080 psi (21 MPa) |
| 12% MC | 5,560 psi (38 MPa) | 1.08 million psi (7.4 GPa) | — |
A dash means the sheet prints no value; none is filled in.
What the data sheet says
- Color, grain and texture
- Heartwood is white, yellowish, or light brown, not differentiated from sapwood. Texture is fine to medium; grain fairly straight to irregular; moderate to rather high luster; without distinctive taste or odor.
- Working properties
- The wood works easily with either hand or machine tools but with some fuzziness and torn grain. The use of very sharp, thin cutting edges and reduced feed rates are suggested. The wood has excellent resistance to screw splitting and holds nails firmly. Logs are reported to peel well on rotary lathes without preheating.
- Durability
- The wood is not durable in ground contact and is vulnerable to powder-post beetle and termite attack.
- Uses
- The timber is used for matchsticks, boxes, crates, house construction, and general carpentry; also suggested for pattern and core stock. Manufactured into a utility plywood in Mexico. Tree is used extensively as "live fencing;" also yields an aromatic resin used as an incense and varnish.
- Where it grows
- Of common occurrence in southern Florida, the West Indies, southern Mexico, Central America, and northern South America. The tree is not exacting as to site and moisture conditions but reaches its best development in lowland forests. On some sites it occurs as pure or nearly pure forests.
Quoted from Tropical Timbers of the World, pp. 57–58, a USDA Forest Products Laboratory work in the public domain.
Work it out for your project
- Rank woods for outdoor work with the species picker
Weigh gumbo-limbo against other woods on hardness, weight, movement and color, every figure from the Wood Handbook.