Tropical wood · Tropical America
Pau Amarello wood
Pau Amarello (Euxylophora paraensis, family Rutaceae) is a tropical timber from tropical America. Dry, its Janka hardness is 1,820 lbf (8,096 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. 143–144.
Other names, by country: Amarello, Limão-rana, Pau setim, Pequia setim (Brazil).
Key numbers
- Janka hardness, dry
- 1,820 lbf (8,096 N)
- Green: 1,610 lbf (7,162 N)
- As printed: “Janka side hardness 1,610 lb for green material and 1,820 lb at 12% moisture content.”
- 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
- 6.7% tangential
- Radial 6.0%, volumetric 12.8%
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 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 | 13,200 psi (91 MPa) | 2.04 million psi (14.1 GPa) | 6,440 psi (44 MPa) |
| 12% MC | 16,200 psi (112 MPa) | 2.18 million psi (15 GPa) | 9,050 psi (62 MPa) |
A dash means the sheet prints no value; none is filled in.
What the data sheet says
- Color, grain and texture
- Heartwood bright clear yellow deepening upon exposure; not sharply defined from the yellowish-white sapwood. Luster is high; texture medium; grain straight to irregular; without distinctive odor or taste.
- Working properties
- Reported not very difficult to work.
- Durability
- Reported probably of low resistance to decay.
- Uses
- Furniture, parquet flooring, and brush handles.
- Where it grows
- Confined to noninundated lands of the lower Amazon region in the State of Pará, Brazil.
Quoted from Tropical Timbers of the World, pp. 143–144, 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 pau Amarello against other woods on hardness, weight, movement and color, every figure from the Wood Handbook.