Tropical wood · Tropical America
Santa Maria wood
Santa Maria (Calophyllum brasiliense, family Guttiferae) is a tropical timber from tropical America. Dry, its Janka hardness is 1,150 lbf (5,115 N), and air-dry it weighs about 39 lb/ft³ (625 kg/m³). The figures are from the USDA Forest Products Laboratory's Tropical Timbers of the World, pp. 65–66.
Other names, by country: Barí, Leche de María (Mexico), Calaba (Panama), Aceite maria (Colombia), Edaballi, Kurahara (Guayana), Balsamaría (Bolivia), Guanandi, Jacareuba (Brazil).
Key numbers
- Janka hardness, dry
- 1,150 lbf (5,115 N)
- Green: 890 lbf (3,959 N)
- As printed: “Janka side hardness 890 lb for green wood and 1,150 lb for dry.”
- Air-dry density
- 39 lb/ft³ (625 kg/m³)
- Basic specific gravity
- 0.51 oven-dry weight, green volume
- As printed: “Basic specific gravity (ovendry weight/green volume) 0.51; air-dry density 39 pcf.”
- Shrinkage, green to oven-dry
- 8.0% tangential
- Radial 4.6%, volumetric 13.6%
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 | 10,490 psi (72 MPa) | 1.59 million psi (11 GPa) | 4,560 psi (31 MPa) |
| 12% MC | 14,640 psi (101 MPa) | 1.83 million psi (12.6 GPa) | 6,910 psi (48 MPa) |
| Green | 11,100 psi (77 MPa) | 1.47 million psi (10.1 GPa) | 5,490 psi (38 MPa) |
| 12% MC | 15,700 psi (108 MPa) | 1.71 million psi (11.8 GPa) | 8,730 psi (60 MPa) |
A dash means the sheet prints no value; none is filled in.
What the data sheet says
- Color, grain and texture
- Heartwood varies in color from pink or yellowish-pink to brick red or rich reddish-brown; sapwood 1 to 2 in. wide, lighter in color and not always clearly differentiated from heartwood. Texture medium and fairly uniform; grain generally interlocked; luster rather low to medium; odor and taste not distinctive.
- Working properties
- The wood is fairly easy to work and generally yields smooth surfaces on straight-grained material but generates torn and chipped grain when interlocked; rates below average in planing, turning, and boring. Rotary cutting of this species for veneer has not been satisfactory.
- Durability
- The heartwood is generally rated as durable to moderately durable with respect to decay resistance; rated as very susceptible to attack by dry-wood termites; not resistant to marine borers.
- Uses
- Widely used in the tropics for general construction, flooring, furniture, boat construction; a favored general utility timber.
- Where it grows
- Grows throughout the West Indies and from Mexico southward through Central America and into northern South America. It is found on all types of soils as well as wet humid to very dry sites.
Quoted from Tropical Timbers of the World, pp. 65–66, 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 santa Maria against other woods on hardness, weight, movement and color, every figure from the Wood Handbook.