Tropical wood · Southeast Asia and Oceania
Kadam wood
Kadam (Anthocephalus chinensis, family Rubiaceae) is a tropical timber from Southeast Asia and Oceania. Dry, its Janka hardness is 600 lbf (2,669 N), and air-dry it weighs about 23–30 lb/ft³ (368–481 kg/m³). The figures are from the USDA Forest Products Laboratory's Tropical Timbers of the World, pp. 559–560.
Other names, by country: Kalempayan (Malaya), Laran (Sabah), Kaatoan Bangkal (Philippines), Kelempajan (Indonesia), Mau-lettan-she (Burma), Kadam (India).
Key numbers
- Janka hardness, dry
- 600 lbf (2,669 N)
- Green: 470 lbf (2,091 N)
- As printed: “Janka side hardness 470 lb green and 600 lb at 12% moisture content.”
- Air-dry density
- 23–30 lb/ft³ (368–481 kg/m³)
- Basic specific gravity
- 0.31–0.40 oven-dry weight, green volume
- As printed: “Basic specific gravity (ovendry weight/green volume) 0.31 to 0.40; air-dry density 23 to 30 pcf.”
- Shrinkage, green to oven-dry
- 5.9% tangential
- Radial 2.5%
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 5 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 | 6,870 psi (47 MPa) | 1.17 million psi (8.1 GPa) | 3,370 psi (23 MPa) |
| 12% MC | 10,980 psi (76 MPa) | 1.27 million psi (8.8 GPa) | 5,750 psi (40 MPa) |
| Green | 5,000 psi (34 MPa) | 0.74 million psi (5.1 GPa) | 2,340 psi (16 MPa) |
| Green | 7,850 psi (54 MPa) | 1.1 million psi (7.6 GPa) | 4,020 psi (28 MPa) |
| 12% MC | 11,150 psi (77 MPa) | 1.26 million psi (8.7 GPa) | 6,440 psi (44 MPa) |
A dash means the sheet prints no value; none is filled in.
What the data sheet says
- Color, grain and texture
- Sapwood white with a light yellow tinge becoming creamy yellow on exposure; not differentiated from the heartwood. Texture fine to medium; grain straight; luster low; without characteristic odor or taste.
- Working properties
- The wood is easy to work with hand and machine tools, cuts cleanly, gives a very good surface. Easy to nail.
- Durability
- The wood is rated as nondurable.
- Uses
- Plywood, light construction, pulp and paper, boxes and crates, furniture components, millwork.
- Where it grows
- Widely distributed from India to the Malayan Peninsula, Indonesia, Philippines, New Guinea, and Australia. Crows best on deep, moist, alluvial sites, often in secondary forests along riverbanks. A favored plantation species inside and outside its native region.
Quoted from Tropical Timbers of the World, pp. 559–560, 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 kadam against other woods on hardness, weight, movement and color, every figure from the Wood Handbook.