Tropical wood · Southeast Asia and Oceania
Merkus Pine wood
Merkus Pine (Pinus merkusii, family Pinaceae) is a tropical timber from Southeast Asia and Oceania. Dry, its Janka hardness is 620 lbf (2,758 N), and air-dry it weighs about 43 lb/ft³ (689 kg/m³). The figures are from the USDA Forest Products Laboratory's Tropical Timbers of the World, pp. 707–708.
Other names, by country: Tínyu, Tinshu (Burma), Tapulau, Mindoro pine (Philippines).
Key numbers
- Janka hardness, dry
- 620 lbf (2,758 N)
- Green: 605 lbf (2,691 N)
- As printed: “Janka side hardness 605 lb for green and 620 lb for dry material.”
- Air-dry density
- 43 lb/ft³ (689 kg/m³)
- Basic specific gravity
- 0.57 oven-dry weight, green volume
- As printed: “Basic specific gravity (ovendry weight/green volume) 0.57; air-dry density 43 pcf.”
- Shrinkage, green to oven-dry
- Not printed
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 | 8,720 psi (60 MPa) | 1.85 million psi (12.8 GPa) | 3,900 psi (27 MPa) |
| 12% MC | 18,700 psi (129 MPa) | 2.48 million psi (17.1 GPa) | 8,500 psi (59 MPa) |
A dash means the sheet prints no value; none is filled in.
What the data sheet says
- Color, grain and texture
- Heartwood yellowishto orange-brown, darkening on exposure; sapwood whitish to creamy-white, sharply delineated in old trees. Texture moderately coarse; grain straight; lustrous when freshly cut but becoming dull with age; resinous odor and a faint resinous taste.
- Working properties
- Saws easily and works to a good finish; resins may gum cutters and tools.
- Durability
- The wood is rated as nondurable and liable to termite attack.
- Uses
- General construction.
- Where it grows
- Eastern Burma, Indo-China, Sumatra, and Luzon and Mindoro in the Philippines. It is the only member of the genus that has a natural range south of the Equator.
Quoted from Tropical Timbers of the World, pp. 707–708, 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 merkus Pine against other woods on hardness, weight, movement and color, every figure from the Wood Handbook.