Padauk

Durability:

The heartwood is very durable and moderately resistant to preservative treatment.

Mechanical Properties:

The timber has excellent strength properties especially in bending and crushing strengths, with medium resistance to shock loads and stiffness.

Seasoning:

Dries fairly rapidly and very well with a minimum of degrade. The movement is exceptionally small in service.

Uses:

  • This attractive wood has high strength properties, durability and outstanding stability and is deal for high-class joinery, furniture and cabinetmaking
  • Also for fancy turnery and carvings, tool and knife handles, spirit levels, paddles and oars, and agricultural implements
  • It has a high resistance to abrasion and makes and excellent heavy-duty flooring timber, also suitable for floors where under-floor heating has been installed because of dimensional stability
  • Selected logs are sliced to form very attractive decorative veneers
  • Renowned as a dye wood
Get in Touch

Description

The heartwood is a vivid blood red, toning down to dark purple-brown with red streaks upon exposure. The grain is straight to interlocked with a moderately coarse texture. Weight varies from 640-800 kg/m³ (40-50 lb/ft³), average 720 kg/m³ (45 lb/ft³); specific gravity .72.

Additional information

Latin Name

Pterocarpus soyauxii

Family Name

Leguminosae

Distribution

Central and West Tropical Africa

Also know as

Camwood, barwood (UK); corail (Belgium)

Timber you may like

  • Iroko

    Iroko is golden-orange to brown, lighter vessel lines are conspicuous on flat saw surfaces. The material may contain large, hard deposits of calcium carbonate in cavities, and the timber around them may be darker in colour. The grain is interlocked and sometimes irregular and the texture rather coarse, but even. The weight is 640 kg/m³ (40 lb/ft³); specific gravity .64.

  • Ekki

    Dark red to deep chocolate-brown with conspicuous white deposits in the pores giving a speckled appearance. Grain is usually interlocked, and the texture coarse and uneven. Weight 950-1120 kg/m³ (59-70 lb/ft³), averaging 1025 kg/m³ (64 lb/ft³); specific gravity 1.02.

  • Cumaru

    The heartwood is reddish-brown or purplish-brown, with light yellowish-brown or purplish streaks when freshly cut, turning to a variegated reddish and yellowish-brown after drying, but on exposure to light assuming a uniform yellowish-brown or light brown colour. The sapwood is about 50mm wide, distinct from the heartwood and yellowish-brown in colour. The wood has a waxy or oily feel, a fine texture, and irregular and often interlocked grain. It is an extremely hard and heavy wood.

  • Massaranduba

    Massaranduba timber’s heartwood is light red to rose red when freshly cut, turning dark reddish brown on exposure; sapwood whitish or pale brown,distinct, but not sharply demarcated from the heart-wood. The grain is usually straight but sometimes interlocked, and the texture is fine and uniform. The timber is hard and extremely heavy.