Tropical wood · Southeast Asia and Oceania
White Chuglam wood
White Chuglam (Terminalia bialata, family Combretaceae) is a tropical timber from Southeast Asia and Oceania. Dry, its Janka hardness is 1,190 lbf (5,293 N), and air-dry it weighs about 43 lb/ft³ (689 kg/m³). The figures are from the USDA Forest Products Laboratory's Tropical Timbers of the World, pp. 747–748.
Other names, by country: Indian Silver Greywood (Indian name for darker, usually figured wood).
Key numbers
- Janka hardness, dry
- 1,190 lbf (5,293 N)
- Green: 995 lbf (4,426 N)
- As printed: “Janka side hardness 995 lb for green material and 1,190 lb for dry.”
- Air-dry density
- 43 lb/ft³ (689 kg/m³)
- Basic specific gravity
- 0.58 oven-dry weight, green volume
- As printed: “Basic specific gravity (ovendry weight/green volume) 0.58; air-dry density 43 pcf.”
- Shrinkage, green to oven-dry
- 7.4% tangential
- Radial 5.4%, volumetric 13.2%
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 | 11,050 psi (76 MPa) | 1.76 million psi (12.1 GPa) | 5,585 psi (39 MPa) |
| 13% MC | 13,525 psi (93 MPa) | 2.01 million psi (13.9 GPa) | 6,810 psi (47 MPa) |
A dash means the sheet prints no value; none is filled in.
What the data sheet says
- Color, grain and texture
- Bright chrome yellow aging to grayish-yellow, sometimes light nut-brown, olive-brown, or yellow-brown with irregular dark streaks; sapwood often very wide and not differentiated. Grain generally straight; texture medium to coarse; lustrous; without characteristic odor or taste.
- Working properties
- Easy to saw and machine and to work with hand tools; dresses to a smooth finish; nailing and gluing are satisfactory.
- Durability
- Classified as moderately durable but is susceptible to pinhole borer and powder-post beetle attack.
- Uses
- Furniture, cabinetwork, paneling, flooring, ships' fittings.
- Where it grows
- Andaman Islands.
Quoted from Tropical Timbers of the World, pp. 747–748, 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 white Chuglam against other woods on hardness, weight, movement and color, every figure from the Wood Handbook.