Tropical wood · Southeast Asia and Oceania
Kulim wood
Kulim (Scorodocarpus borneensis, family Olacaceae) is a tropical timber from Southeast Asia and Oceania. Dry, its Janka hardness is 1,370 lbf (6,094 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. 727–728.
Other names, by country: Bawang Hutan (Sabah, Sarawak).
Key numbers
- Janka hardness, dry
- 1,370 lbf (6,094 N)
- Green: 1,290 lbf (5,738 N)
- As printed: “Janka side hardness 1,290 lb for green material and 1,370 lb for dry.”
- Air-dry density
- 54 lb/ft³ (865 kg/m³)
- Basic specific gravity
- 0.70 oven-dry weight, green volume
- As printed: “Basic specific gravity (ovendry weight/green volume) 0.70; air-dry density 54 pcf.”
- Shrinkage, green to oven-dry
- 9.3% tangential
- Radial 4.1%, volumetric 13.3%
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 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 | 11,240 psi (77 MPa) | 1.93 million psi (13.3 GPa) | 6,440 psi (44 MPa) |
| 16% MC | 15,500 psi (107 MPa) | 2.16 million psi (14.9 GPa) | 8,270 psi (57 MPa) |
A dash means the sheet prints no value; none is filled in.
What the data sheet says
- Color, grain and texture
- Heartwood dark red-brown to purple-brown; sapwood light yellow, sometimes with a transitional red-brown zone. Texture moderately fine; grain shallowly to deeply interlocked; luster low; a strong smell of garlic when freshly cut; vessel lines may give a silver fleck on longitudinal surfaces.
- Working properties
- Moderately easy to saw; dresses and bores smoothly, if grain not deeply interlocked.
- Durability
- Reported to be moderately durable with some resistance to termite attack. Some exposure tests indicate a life of about 2 to 5 years when placed in waters containing marine borers.
- Uses
- Heavy and light construction work where decay hazards are low.
- Where it grows
- Sumatra, Malay Peninsula, and Borneo; throughout lowland forests, occasionally gregarious.
Quoted from Tropical Timbers of the World, pp. 727–728, a USDA Forest Products Laboratory work in the public domain.
Work it out for your project
- Rank woods for your project with the species picker
Weigh kulim against other woods on hardness, weight, movement and color, every figure from the Wood Handbook.