Tropical wood · Tropical America
Kopie wood
Kopie (Goupia glabra, family Goupiaceae (Celastraceae)) is a tropical timber from tropical America. Dry, its Janka hardness is 1,840 lbf (8,185 N), and air-dry it weighs about 54 lb/ft³ (865 kg/m³). The figures are from the USDA Forest Products Laboratory's Tropical Timbers of the World, pp. 151–152.
Other names, by country: Saino, Sapino (Colombia), Kopi (Surinam), Kabukalli (Guyana), Goupie (French Guiana), Cupiúba (Brazil).
Key numbers
- Janka hardness, dry
- 1,840 lbf (8,185 N)
- Green: 1,400 lbf (6,228 N)
- As printed: “Janka side hardness about 1,400 lb for green material and 1,840 lb at 12% moisture content.”
- Air-dry density
- 54 lb/ft³ (865 kg/m³)
- Basic specific gravity
- 0.72 oven-dry weight, green volume
- As printed: “Basic specific gravity (ovendry weight/green volume) 0.72; air-dry density 54 pcf.”
- Shrinkage, green to oven-dry
- 8.0% tangential
- Radial 4.5%, volumetric 12.6%
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 | 11,480 psi (79 MPa) | 1.81 million psi (12.5 GPa) | 6,170 psi (43 MPa) |
| 12% MC | 15,300 psi (105 MPa) | 2.15 million psi (14.8 GPa) | 8,350 psi (58 MPa) |
| 12% MC | 16,600 psi (114 MPa) | 2.37 million psi (16.3 GPa) | 10,850 psi (75 MPa) |
| Green | 14,000 psi (97 MPa) | 1.98 million psi (13.7 GPa) | 7,350 psi (51 MPa) |
| 15% MC | 17,600 psi (121 MPa) | — | 9,750 psi (67 MPa) |
A dash means the sheet prints no value; none is filled in.
What the data sheet says
- Color, grain and texture
- Heartwood light reddish-brown, darkening superficially upon exposure; distinct but not sharply demarcated from thick brownish or pinkish sapwood. Luster medium to rather high; texture medium to coarse; grain straight to interlocked; odor is fetid when fresh but dissipates upon drying though still apparent.
- Working properties
- It is rated fair to good in most operations but torn and chipped grain is common in planing because of interlocked grain. Coarser material requires a filler to obtain a smooth finish.
- Durability
- Laboratory evaluations indicate good resistance to attack by both brownand white-rot fungi, but rated only slightly to moderately resistant to decay in field tests in Guyana. Resistant to dry-wood termite attack but has little resistance to marine borers.
- Uses
- Heavy construction, industrial flooring, furniture components. A highly favored general purpose timber in the Guianas.
- Where it grows
- Uplands of the lower Amazon, the Guianas, and the Serrania de San Lucas, Carare-Opon, Rio Cauca Valley, and other regions of Colombia.
Quoted from Tropical Timbers of the World, pp. 151–152, 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 kopie against other woods on hardness, weight, movement and color, every figure from the Wood Handbook.