Tropical wood · Africa
Sapo wood
Sapo (Didelotia brevipaniculata, family Leguminosae) is a tropical timber from Africa. 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. 391–392.
Other names, by country: Sapo, Bondu (Liberia), Ekop Zing (Cameroon).
Key numbers
- Janka hardness, dry
- Not printed
- Air-dry density
- 41 lb/ft³ (657 kg/m³)
- Basic specific gravity
- 0.53 oven-dry weight, green volume
- As printed: “Basic specific gravity (ovendry weight/green volume) about 0.53; air-dry density 41 pcf.”
- Shrinkage, green to oven-dry
- 9.0% tangential
- Radial 3.8%, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12% MC | 13,400 psi (92 MPa) | 1.25 million psi (8.6 GPa) | 7,600 psi (52 MPa) |
| 12% MC | 14,700 psi (101 MPa) | 1.69 million psi (11.7 GPa) | 7,450 psi (51 MPa) |
A dash means the sheet prints no value; none is filled in.
What the data sheet says
- Color, grain and texture
- Heartwood light brown to brown, sometimes with a greenish tint on the sapwood boundary; sapwood about 2-in, wide reddish-white to a light brown, clearly differentiated. Texture coarse; grain straight to interlocked; without characteristic odor.
- Working properties
- Works fairly well with hand and machine tools, planes to a good finish but there is some tearing of interlocked grain, glues well, peels and slices well into veneers.
- Durability
- Heartwood is moderately durable but liable to termite attack.
- Uses
- Core stock for plywood and blockboard, decorative veneers, particleboard, furniture components, joinery.
- Where it grows
- West Africa in evergreen rain forests.
Quoted from Tropical Timbers of the World, pp. 391–392, 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 sapo against other woods on hardness, weight, movement and color, every figure from the Wood Handbook.