Tropical wood · Tropical America
Lysiloma spp. wood
Lysiloma spp. (Lysiloma spp., family Leguminosae) is a tropical timber from tropical America. Dry, its Janka hardness is 1,400 lbf (6,228 N), and air-dry it weighs about 48 lb/ft³ (769 kg/m³). The figures are from the USDA Forest Products Laboratory's Tropical Timbers of the World, pp. 191–192.
Other names, by country: Abey, Frijolillo, Jigüe, Sabicú (Cuba), Tabernau, Tavernon (Haiti), T'zalam (Mexico).
Key numbers
- Janka hardness, dry
- 1,400 lbf (6,228 N)
- Green: 1,320 lbf (5,872 N)
- As printed: “Janka side hardness 1,320 lb for green material and 1,400 lb at 12% moisture content.”
- Air-dry density
- 48 lb/ft³ (769 kg/m³)
- Basic specific gravity
- 0.63 oven-dry weight, green volume
- As printed: “Basic specific gravity (ovendry weight/green volume) 0.63; air-dry density 48 pcf.”
- Shrinkage, green to oven-dry
- 7.2% tangential
- Radial 2.7%, volumetric 9.5%
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 | 9,500 psi (66 MPa) | 1.23 million psi (8.5 GPa) | — |
| 12% MC | 12,800 psi (88 MPa) | 1.9 million psi (13.1 GPa) | — |
A dash means the sheet prints no value; none is filled in.
What the data sheet says
- Color, grain and texture
- Heartwood lustrous brown with a coppery or purplish tinge, sometimes faintly striped; sharply demarcated from the thin white sapwood. Texture medium; grain straight to roey; without distinctive odor or taste.
- Working properties
- Considered easy to work, finishes smoothly, and takes a high natural polish.
- Durability
- Heartwood is rated as highly durable.
- Uses
- General construction, furniture, wheelwright work, parquet, interior trims bobbins and shuttles, veneer, and knife handles.
- Where it grows
- Chiefly a Mexican genus with extensions into Central America, southernmost parts of the United States, and the Greater Antilles.
Quoted from Tropical Timbers of the World, pp. 191–192, 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 lysiloma spp. against other woods on hardness, weight, movement and color, every figure from the Wood Handbook.