Tropical wood · Tropical America
Piquiá wood
Piquiá (Caryocar spp., family Caryocaraceae) is a tropical timber from tropical America. Dry, its Janka hardness is 1,720 lbf (7,651 N), and air-dry it weighs about 51–58 lb/ft³ (817–929 kg/m³). The figures are from the USDA Forest Products Laboratory's Tropical Timbers of the World, pp. 75–76.
Other names, by country: C. villosum: Ajillo (Costa Rica), Pekia (Guayana), Sawarie (Surinam), Almendro (Peru), Piquiá (Brazil); C. costarricense: Ají (Costa Rica), Cagüí, almendrillo, almendrón (Colombia).
Key numbers
- Janka hardness, dry
- 1,720 lbf (7,651 N)
- Green: 1,720 lbf (7,651 N)
- As printed: “Janka side hardness 1,720 lb for both green and dry material.”
- Air-dry density
- 51–58 lb/ft³ (817–929 kg/m³)
- Basic specific gravity
- 0.67–0.76 oven-dry weight, green volume
- As printed: “Basic specific gravity (ovendry weight/green volume) 0.67 to 0.76; air-dry density 51 to 58 pcf.”
- Shrinkage, green to oven-dry
- 8.0% tangential
- Radial 5.0%, volumetric 13.0%
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 | 12,450 psi (86 MPa) | 1.82 million psi (12.5 GPa) | 6,290 psi (43 MPa) |
| 12% MC | 17,060 psi (118 MPa) | 2.16 million psi (14.9 GPa) | 8,410 psi (58 MPa) |
A dash means the sheet prints no value; none is filled in.
What the data sheet says
- Color, grain and texture
- Heartwood yellowish to light grayish-brown hardly separable from the sapwood. Texture medium to rather coarse; grain interlocked; fresh material with a mild vinegary scent but without odor or taste when dry.
- Working properties
- Reported as easy to moderately difficult to saw; rapid dulling of cutting edges; radial faces difficult to finish smoothly because of interlocked grain.
- Durability
- Heartwood rated as very durable in resistance to both brown-rot and white-rot fungi; classified as resistant to dry-wood termites and moderately resistant to marine borers.
- Uses
- General and marine construction, heavy flooring, railway crossties, boat parts, furniture components, especially suitable where hardness and high wear resistance are needed. Tree produces a large edible fruit (when cooked) which contains an oil-producing nut used for culinary purposes.
- Where it grows
- Commercial species of the genus found in Costa Rica and southward into northern Colombia, upland forests of the Amazon valley, to eastern Brazil and the Guianas.
Quoted from Tropical Timbers of the World, pp. 75–76, 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 piquiá against other woods on hardness, weight, movement and color, every figure from the Wood Handbook.