Tropical wood · Southeast Asia and Oceania
Merpauh wood
Merpauh (Swintonia spp., family Anacardiaceae) is a tropical timber from Southeast Asia and Oceania. Dry, its Janka hardness is 850–1,300 lbf (3,781–5,783 N), and air-dry it weighs about 46 lb/ft³ (737 kg/m³). The figures are from the USDA Forest Products Laboratory's Tropical Timbers of the World, pp. 741–742.
Other names, by country: Selan (Sarawak), Boilam (India), Taung-thayet (Burma), Khan thong (Thailand).
Key numbers
- Janka hardness, dry
- 850–1,300 lbf (3,781–5,783 N)
- Green: 740–1,070 lbf (3,292–4,760 N)
- As printed: “Janka side hardness 740-1,070 lb for green material and 850-1,300 lb for dry.”
- Air-dry density
- 46 lb/ft³ (737 kg/m³)
- Basic specific gravity
- 0.61 oven-dry weight, green volume
- As printed: “Basic specific gravity (ovendry weight/green volume) 0.61; air-dry density 46 pcf.”
- Shrinkage, green to oven-dry
- 6.0% tangential
- Radial 3.2%, volumetric 10.8%
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 4 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 | 11,520 psi (79 MPa) | 2.12 million psi (14.6 GPa) | 5,710 psi (39 MPa) |
| 18% MC | 14,750 psi (102 MPa) | 2.31 million psi (15.9 GPa) | 7,110 psi (49 MPa) |
| Green | 8,625 psi (59 MPa) | 1.64 million psi (11.3 GPa) | 4,095 psi (28 MPa) |
| 14% MC | 11,435 psi (79 MPa) | 1.85 million psi (12.8 GPa) | 5,590 psi (39 MPa) |
A dash means the sheet prints no value; none is filled in.
What the data sheet says
- Color, grain and texture
- Heartwood grayish-white, yellow-brown, light red-brown, narrow lighter-colored striping often on radial faces and dark zigzag figure on tangential faces; sapwood not clearly differentiated. Texture moderately coarse; grain straight to interlocked; lustrous when freshly cut; without characteristic odor or taste. Some species are siliceous.
- Working properties
- Tension wood is rather common causing difficulty in sawing and a woolly finish, otherwise works rather well.
- Durability
- Heartwood is not durable and sapwood is particularly prone to stain.
- Uses
- Boatbuilding, light construction, packing cases, rotary veneer, matches.
- Where it grows
- Burma and the Malayan Peninsula eastward into Borneo, Cambodia, and the Philippines.
Quoted from Tropical Timbers of the World, pp. 741–742, a USDA Forest Products Laboratory work in the public domain.
Work it out for your project
- Rank woods for outdoor work with the species picker
Weigh merpauh against other woods on hardness, weight, movement and color, every figure from the Wood Handbook.