Sapele
Project Boards
Dressed Lumber
Lumber
Thins
Turning Blanks
Veneer
Sapele (Entandrophragma cylindricum)
Pricing:
Average
Hardness:
1,410
Janka
Distribution:
Tropical Africa
Availability:
Readily Available
Appearance
The heartwood is a golden to dark reddish brown and its quartersawn surface has the ribboned pattern that is associated with Sapele. It also is known to have a wide variety of other figured patterns like pommele, quilted, mottled, wavy, beeswing, and fiddleback. The colour tends to darken as it ages.
Workability
The grain is interlocked which can cause a lot of trouble with tearout during both machining and hand tool operations. Sapele has a slight blunting effect on edge tools but takes glue and finish well.
Uses
Sapele gets used for all types of woodworking including furniture, cabinet making, instrument making, turning, and boat building.
Additional Comments
Despite some of the difficulties there are working with Sapele, it is all worth it just to see some of its incredible grain patterns and figure.
