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Hi folks, I could use your help on one of those mystery wood cases.
Wood in question is from South America. Very hard, very heavy. Density is 1,32 g/cm3 (i re-checked!), which should put it amongst the heaviest woods in the world, right up on lignum vitae territory.

Any guesses are welcome. I thought about bulnesia, guayacan, caesalpina paraguariensis... but I really don't have a clue. Interesting black lines, nice texture.


Thanks,
Miguel.

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

Another pic, this one with interior light and against a maple veneer.

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

No idea Miguel. I can't even pronounce the other planks you have.
Very beautiful wood!
I'd like to know what it is as well.
Dan

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wah
Wah-wah-wah-wah
Wah

Pau Ferro I'd say. It is a good wood

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

Goncalo Alves, (tigerwood), Yep.
Ken

Looks kinda like some of the brown Ipe/Ebano and Jatoba I have.

Does it have a scent when sanded/planed?

Thanks for the replies. I haven't sanded it, which I should've, so I can't say anything about the smell.

Don't think it's pau ferro - different texture and the density sort of excludes that possibility. Don't think it's ipe either, at least the piece I have has a very different grain structure.

But it kind of looks like pau ferro, at least to the darker, more contrasting kind (like the one in the photo).

I bought it as gombeira , from a seller in Germany that sells a lot of different wood species (including ipe and pau ferro). But it's definitely not gombeira, which is an altogether different wood, very similar to katalox.
Anyway, never seen any wood remotely as dense as this. Really interested to know what this could be.

Thanks again!

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

At 82 lbs/ ft3 that is some very heavy wood. I could believe goncalo or pau ferro depending on which picture I'm looking at, but even considering the variation in weight lumber has I don't think they could come out that heavy.

I'd say Ipe.

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I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.

Edit to add... I think it's properly identified. Gombiera wood - aka Brown ebony..... Heavy, hard, dark brown with black streaks.. I have some sold to me as brown ebony and it looks just like that.....

Wow is that stuff dense!

Agree

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thanks again guys. it seems we have yet another case of ambiguous wood naming. I had a feeling it could be brown ebony - caesalpinia paraguariensis, sometimes also called guayacan.

If you care for some boring nit-picking, gombeira it´s a name given to some (or maybe all?) wood from the Swartzia genus in Brazil, specially S. aptera, S. laxiflora and S.vleptopetala. These trees also go by the name of coraçao de negro (blackheart) or pau preto (blackwood) - also not very specific. Their range lies in northern brazil and neighboring countries, around the amazon basin. In the south of brazil there is yet another wood called gombeira, Melanoxylon brauna but this later species is more usually called just brauna or canela-preta (black cinnamon).


As for pau ferro, outside South America it usually refers to M. scleroxylon but in brazil this is mostly called caviuna, while pau ferro (meaning ironwood) refers mostly to a relative, M. villosum (also called jacaranda do cerrado) or to Caesalpinia ferrea - the last one also called juca or pau ferro negro (black ironwood). So we see the names a bit of going around in circles...

Here´s the link to hobbithouseinc artickle on brown ebony / guayacan : http://www.hobbithouseinc.com/personal/ ... ayacan.htm

It´s hard to find pics of caesalpinia ferrea, but you can find a guitar here : https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-S8XB0HCpLME/ ... ATURAL.jpg . the numbers i´ve found for c. ferrea´s density have been around 1,2 g/cm3... ok, i admit i have too much time on my hands!


I´m now convinced it could be the later, C. ferrea but maybe it´s C. paraguariensis. or who knows what... but its nice wood.


thanks for watching and sorry for the long digression.

merry Christmas!

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

Going from local names to species names is tricky - as every single place in the whole world has an "iron wood"...

Then - once you go from out in the country in South America to some place else - all bets are off. They export/sell the wood seemingly as whatever they nominally think they can sell it as...

It's not too far off "white" and "red" oak... There are about 100 species of oak... 60% are sold as "white" and 40% are sold as "red". If the wood is more green/tan/light brown - it's sold as "white". If it's more red/pink/orange/reddish brown - it's sold as "Red".

I have to say, it looks exactly like the Pau Ferro (Machaerium scleroxylon) I have been using for bindings, but the weight is much more like that of ebony. (Never seen brown ebony but it doesn't look much like the pictures I could find)

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust