Tropical wood · Africa
Muninga wood
Muninga (Pterocarpus angolensis, family Leguminosae) is a tropical timber from Africa. Dry, its Janka hardness is 1,480 lbf (6,583 N), and air-dry it weighs about 41 lb/ft³ (657 kg/m³). The figures are from the USDA Forest Products Laboratory's Tropical Timbers of the World, pp. 491–492.
Other names, by country: Mutete (Angola), Mukwa (Rhodesia), Mtumbati (Tanzania), Kiatt, Kajat (South Africa).
Key numbers
- Janka hardness, dry
- 1,480 lbf (6,583 N)
- Green: 1,300 lbf (5,783 N)
- As printed: “Janka side hardness 1,300 lb for green material and 1,480 lb for dry.”
- Air-dry density
- 41 lb/ft³ (657 kg/m³)
- Basic specific gravity
- 0.59 oven-dry weight, green volume
- As printed: “Basic specific gravity (ovendry weight/green volume) about 0.59; air-dry density 41 pcf.”
- Shrinkage, green to 12% moisture content
- 1.5% tangential
- Radial 1.0%
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 | 12,300 psi (85 MPa) | 1.1 million psi (7.6 GPa) | 5,890 psi (41 MPa) |
| 12% MC | 13,700 psi (94 MPa) | 1.22 million psi (8.4 GPa) | 8,280 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 highly variable, pale uniform brown, golden-brown, chocolate-brown, brick-red, or purplish-brown, with darker or redder streaks that tone down on exposure; sapwood pale gray or yellowish, clearly defined. Texture medium to coarse; grain straight to interlocked; attractive figure; no luster; scent faint and aromatic. Dry sawdust may cause nasal irritation and bronchial asthma.
- Working properties
- Works well with hand and machine tools, only moderate blunting of cutters, straight-grained material planes and shapes to a good finish, peels and slices cleanly, good gluing, excellent turning and carving.
- Durability
- Heartwood is rated as durable or moderately so, and very resistant to moderately so to termites and marine borers; sapwood is liable to powder-post beetle attack.
- Uses
- Furniture, fine joinery, flooring, decorative veneer, turnery, boatbuilding. 3. Farmer, R. H. (ed.). 1972. Handbook of hardwoods. H. M. Stationery Office. London.
- Where it grows
- A wide distribution over south-central Africa, common in savanna woodland.
Quoted from Tropical Timbers of the World, pp. 491–492, 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 muninga against other woods on hardness, weight, movement and color, every figure from the Wood Handbook.