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Harry M I’ve watched just about all of their videos. As a newbie I’ve learned so much. I get a bigger kick out of watching the girls build being that I’m one myself.😀
Hi Janine, thank you! She was very nervous! But she really wanted to do the video. Someday we’ll have to show off her collection of wood species. She loves science & woodworking both. And she has become a very good woodworker over the last several years.
King's Fine Woodworking I couldn’t tell she was nervous because she did an excellent job. I hope she has more speaking parts soon.😉 Who said older folk can’t learn from the young?
Hmmm... I'll bet there's at least 4 species in that collection that are NOT harvested, then transported down a river to the mill for processing! Fun video to watch... My granddaughters will enjoy this one for sure!
Nice video! I am from Argentina, the railway sleepers here in my country, in some parts of the country are still from QUEBRACHO, they are more than a hundred years old and they do not even rot, it is really impressive. One of the best woods in the world!
I have a new found fascination with wood. Sign that I´m getting old. I've always found woods intersting though. As a child in Cuba, I grew up around mahoagny and cedro furniture. Caoba (Cuban mahogany) is one of my favorite woods, and cedro (Cuban cedar, cedrela odorata) has the most amazing smell. It will give your home a characteristic smell that I still remember from my grand parents' house.
Hi from India. Simply loved this video. I am a writer and write a lot of woodworking articles. So, I found this video so interesting because I have written about most of the types of wood that you featured here. Extremely well-made video. Keep up the good work!
Thank you! Very cool! We specified Purple Heart Mahogany for our custom designed outdoor benches for signature looks. I worked on 3 waterfront park designs in Boston during 1980-1990 for Carol R. Johnson and Associates, Landscape Architects and Site Planners. Wish this video was available to us during those years- who knows what creative work it would have inspired!
Kudos James! This attests to your pedagogue skills! Not only did you manage to skillfully teach us about the different woods of the world but you we had a great opportunity to Sai in action! Thanks again and as always looking forward to your next production.
Another enjoyable video. I love that you and your family do this together. With your top quality content, I can easily imagine your subscriber numbers skyrocketing in the not too distant future. Keep 'em coming. Cheers.
I congratulate you for this exhibition of woods very educational and made was very good original and different ideas and the feminine touch of the Girl excellent and different Congratulations greetings from Mexico
On Aruba we also have the axe breaker tree. Till this day the hardest wood I have personally have come across. Ow I forgot we call it kibrahacha. The papiamento name sounds almost identical, we say kibrahacha instead of quebrahacha. I did not expect to see that one in your list.
As a son of a carpenter in the Philippines, I have seen lots of wood…rosewood/nara and ebony/ironwood are my favorite😊, however, it is getting harder and harder to get a hand on these woods so we sorted to mahogany and we kept pieces of furniture made from these woods for ourselves😂…the family shifted to working with aluminum windows, cabinets and upholstery 😅
Yep just watched it again lol.. That was a brilliant display and Sai's delivery was superb ! Balsa is 10x the density of Lignum.. The float test..! Awesome man and fact that I'm sitting here with the first full set of your blocks you have sent out makes me smile so much.I'm even wearing a 'Kings Comm' T-shirt right now.Great clip my brother
I live in Bolivia, SA and we have Guayacaun, what you call Lignum Vitae (tree of life). It smells so good when you cut a little of it but after cutting it for a few days the smell starts to get to me. It makes beautiful furniture and doors but is mostly used in making small tourist items from what I have seen . I cut blanks for a couple hundred flutes one day but went through a few saw blades. My favorite though, is Tajibo (some call it Ipe). Most of the things I make are made from this. It isn't as dense as Lignum but it doesn't float either. My other favorite is called Roble, which translates to Oak but is a lot lighter and oily. It also has a pleasant smell when cutting.
Hi Keni, that’s amazing. I wish we were able to directly import that wood from Bolivia. We love working with both Guayacaun, and Ipe! Thank you for sharing that info.
I just completed carving a hatchet handle out of Ipe by hand. What a chore that was. Turned out well for what it took to carve it. I won't try it again.
Outstanding educational video. Not only learning about the different types of woods, and their densities, but a geography lesson as to where they come from throughout the world. Nice to see Sai in action and not just "photo-bombing,"........lol. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.
Very nice video, it's amazing to see woodworkers that love wood like you guys, and Sai is probably a better woodworker than the average Joe (me included), looking at this video, you have to realize that trees are the most important species on the planet, tree provides so much when alive; generating oxygen from bad gases, providing shelter and shade and housing for animals, holding the ground from erosion, providing material for building houses, furniture and more, used for tools, hunting, weapons, source of heat for humanity to warm us and preparing food... the list is almost endless... Thank God for Trees!!!
Hey there bud!! I enjoyed the video, it was very informative intriguingly interesting. I especially loved the water test, that was pretty awesome. I'm a newbie in the wood game, I just recently found myself very interested in rocks gems wood and various metals and paints
James - really nice to see a visual demo of wood density, shows the differences. I have a fairly old woodworking manual that suggests a species called Brazil Wood is marginally denser than Lignum but I'm not sure what that is and suspect which piece of wood you test varies to the extent that the results are not entirely representative, so maybe it's not!
Using this video in my Mechanical Engineering class showing the stability and instability of cubes in water. Those cubes with density greater than 0.79 g/cm^3 (but less than 1.0) and those cubes with density less than 0.21 g/cm^3 will float in a stable horizontal position. The rest of them float in a tipped over position to find their stability (or sink). Pause at 0:53 for a good look at them.
Interesting thing i found with yellow heart wood. It glows under a black light. I found this out when i was looking for the light switch in my shop and i had a black light in my pocket. I turned it on to find the switch and all of the sawdust from the yellow heart i cut the day before, lit up the shop under the black light.
If you don't submit that for a science grade you will be missing out! "The Only Difference Between Screwing Around and Science Is Writing It Down". By Adam Savage
A fantastic presentation, you must be incredibly proud of both your daughters and it obvious you have a wonderfully close family. I’m new to woodworking and those woods were gorgeous, but something concerns me about exotics. We know deforestation is causing massive damage in parts of the world, so is there some international standard (I’m a Brit) that says its responsibly sourced?
As an acoustic guitar player I appreciate this. What about ebony or macassar ebony? What about Indian rosewood? Where do these fall in the sink or swim test? Thanks
I work with Osage Orange, known locally as Bodark or even Bois d'Ark if you're from the French Quarters and some samples I have will sink and others will float. It depends on how fresh cut it is and how near a knot it was cut from.
What a fun and interesting video. Thank you James for putting this together. Now I know why the Bocote I used for rolling pin rests ruined my cheap Sears router bit!
Hi Michael, some of those harder woods are brutal on blades and bits. We go through a lot of drill bits drilling the heads of our Thor’s Hammer Mallets. It really can add to the cost of a project.
You need to get a piece of Acacia acuminata. We call it JAM. It smells delicious when you cut it. Native to South West, Western Australia. The colour variation is amazing also.
I wish I could!! So many amazing species in Australia that I just can’t get ahold of. So sad. I am very fortunate though that a Wonderful friend sent me some Australian Buloke!
To be honest I'd never heard of Buloke. I'll see what I can do. But one problem we have here is some timbers have multiple names, for same timber. Others have multiple species of different trees which share the same common name. Victoria Ash, Tasmanian Oak. Neither true ash nor oak.
Gosh, I wish I can send you some kamagong/Philippine ebony, tindalo, narra, yakal, molave. Or even just the coco lumber and rattan. They are all so beautiful.
Hi Adrian, thank you. And sure. Here is your reason. Hardness vs Density Density is a physical property that measures the amount of matter contained within a given volume. The more matter you can pack into a certain volume, the denser that substance is. For example, iron is denser than water, and water is denser than air. Density is measured by taking the mass of the piece and dividing that by the volume. Commonly done in grams/ cubic centimeter. Wood densities can vary from 0.1 g/cm^3 to 1.4 g/cm^3. On an interesting side note, no wood can have a density greater than 1.5 g/cm^3. (Water by comparison is 1 g/cm^3) This is because all of the cellular material that wood is composed of, plant cell walls, lignin, hemicellulose, etc; all have a density of almost exactly 1.5 g/cm^3. So assuming no water, and no air space, we would have the theoretically densest possible wood. Which would equal 1.5 g/cm^3. When we add in water, which is lower in density than that, and we add in air space, the density always goes down from the theoretical max. Hardness is a physical property that measures a substance’s ability to resist deformation. For example, much less force is required to deform balsa wood than to deform oak. In wood, hardness is measured using the Janka scale. This is done by measuring the amount of force required (in pounds), that it takes to depress a steel ball of 0.444 inch diameter to a depth of exactly half of the ball’s diameter into the wood. Wood hardnesses can range from a Janka Hardness of 60 pounds-force to 5060 pounds-force. And it’s always calculated by averaging the test from different faces. Although Density and Hardness are both separate properties, they are not completely independent of one another. As density goes up, so does hardness. But even so. They are not the same. If we were to do a gross dissection of a tree, immediately under the bark, we find the cambium. This is the thin active layer that is responsible for the outward growth of the tree and development of rings. Below the cambium is the sapwood, which all woodworkers know about. This layer is living and wet, and is filled with the hollow tubes that transport water & nutrients up from the roots. The tubes are called xylem. Moving inward from the sapwood we get to the heartwood. This is the densest part of the tree and it is dead. All of the xylem have stopped working and have filled up with resins. Next if we move down to a cellular level we can analyze the composition further. In a given cell, we find three main components, cellulose, lignin, and hemicellulose. About half of it is cellulose. That is the strong fibrous material. And about a quarter of it is lignin. This is the glue that binds the cellulose together. The cellulose forms long chains that go directionally up and down the length of the tree. The lignin is found in between, and is the glue that binds those long fibers together. The cellulose is actually much stronger than the lignin. It’s harder to break a board against the grain because you must break cellulose fibers. But with the grain you only have to break the lignin that is bonding the fibers together, which is much easier, since it’s weaker. Which brings us to our next point. Most other building materials ie. steel, plastic, bricks, are isotropic, meaning they behave the same from any direction. Wood is not. Wood is what we call anisotropic, which means it has different properties in different directions. For example, you can break a board much easier with the grain than against it. For this reason when we measure hardness, we will measure on all faces of a board, and then average them. It’s also why end grain cutting boards are more durable than face grain ones. In contrast, if we used a piece of plastic for a cutting board, it would make no difference which side is up. Recognizing and using wood’s anisotropicity appropriately is one of the things that makes us good woodworkers. Now, recognizing that wood has different properties when approached from different directions gives us the main clue we need to figure out how hardness varies from density. When we encounter the end grain with an object of a specific size, we encounter more cellulose fibers at once, this is one of the reasons that wood is harder on the end grain. If we approach from the side, we will encounter a smaller number of these cellulose fibers at once. And hence it is weaker. Now, we know that approaching more cellulose fibers means more hardness. So we can infer that if a wood has a higher count of cellulose fibers, it has a higher hardness. The second of three reasons, is that the individual fibers of cellulose are thicker and stronger in a harder wood. So in addition to a higher quantity, each one is actually stronger & more resistant to deflection. Third, the lignin, which is the organic adhesive that holds those wood fibers together exists is greater quantity, so the cellulose fibers are bonded together better. Finally, in the heartwood of the tree where the xylem has filled with gums and resins, the resins play a critical part. Different trees have different compounds that make up their resins, and the trees that are harder, contain stronger, more resilient resins. In summation, the cellulose fibers in harder trees are in greater quantity, they are less likely to break, they are less likely to detach from one another, and they are filled with stronger resins & gums. Sources: Handbook of Chemistry and Physics 94th edition tyboomakbook.org/download.php?title=crc-handbook-of-chemistry-and-physics-94th-edition-free.pdf Textbook of Dendrology Hardin, James Walker, 1937 The Biology of Wood from Cell to Trees www.newphytologist.org/img/upload/files/42nd%20NPS%20Abstract%20Book%205_7_18%20Online.pdf The Wood Handbook: Wood as an Engineering Material US Forest Products Laboratory www.fpl.fs.fed.us/products/publications/several_pubs.php?grouping_id=100&header_id=p Tree Trunk Biology and Basic Wood Structure www.thoughtco.com/trunk-biology-1343512
WOW! Thank you for your detailed reply! I understood most of these principles before, but it would have been hard for me to explain it as well as you have.
So fascinating, if you could, you should give us examples of your projects based on the unfamiliar/expensive species you have! Also too, I plan on ordering a collection tomorrow 👍🏽
I thought Brazilian Ipe or Ironwood was the hardest? I installed this on a friend's deck and it took a few drill bits to pilot through. Only a 5'x7' area. Big learning curve. It is so dense that it does not accept paint or stain but turns a nice gray after years. No splintesr and it is fireproof apparently! Am I wrong?
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we have our own Borneo ironwood(terbelian) with density of 835-1,185 kg/m3, juz to let u know
Very educational! That’s the first time I’ve heard Sai talk. She’s so intelligent and a great builder too!
Harry M I’ve watched just about all of their videos. As a newbie I’ve learned so much. I get a bigger kick out of watching the girls build being that I’m one myself.😀
Hi Janine, thank you! She was very nervous! But she really wanted to do the video. Someday we’ll have to show off her collection of wood species. She loves science & woodworking both. And she has become a very good woodworker over the last several years.
King's Fine Woodworking I couldn’t tell she was nervous because she did an excellent job. I hope she has more speaking parts soon.😉 Who said older folk can’t learn from the young?
Hmmm... I'll bet there's at least 4 species in that collection that are NOT harvested, then transported down a river to the mill for processing! Fun video to watch... My granddaughters will enjoy this one for sure!
This is probably one of the coolest wood videos I've seen in a long time!
Nice video! I am from Argentina, the railway sleepers here in my country, in some parts of the country are still from QUEBRACHO, they are more than a hundred years old and they do not even rot, it is really impressive. One of the best woods in the world!
I have a new found fascination with wood. Sign that I´m getting old. I've always found woods intersting though. As a child in Cuba, I grew up around mahoagny and cedro furniture. Caoba (Cuban mahogany) is one of my favorite woods, and cedro (Cuban cedar, cedrela odorata) has the most amazing smell. It will give your home a characteristic smell that I still remember from my grand parents' house.
Hi from India. Simply loved this video. I am a writer and write a lot of woodworking articles. So, I found this video so interesting because I have written about most of the types of wood that you featured here. Extremely well-made video. Keep up the good work!
In my opinion this is one of the best demonstrations of wood properties I've seen yet. Thanks so much!
Thank you! Very cool! We specified Purple Heart Mahogany for our custom designed outdoor benches for signature looks. I worked on 3 waterfront park designs in Boston during 1980-1990 for Carol R. Johnson and Associates, Landscape Architects and Site Planners. Wish this video was available to us during those years- who knows what creative work it would have inspired!
Kudos James! This attests to your pedagogue skills! Not only did you manage to skillfully teach us about the different woods of the world but you we had a great opportunity to Sai in action! Thanks again and as always looking forward to your next production.
Thank you sir. That is very kind!
It was a very kind comment indeed ! Also just Karma.. So many people with so much love and respect for you James.I wonder why.. :)
Great video as always!! It was an absolute pleasure to listen to Sai in this video. Keep up the great work King family!
Another enjoyable video. I love that you and your family do this together.
With your top quality content, I can easily imagine your subscriber numbers skyrocketing in the not too distant future. Keep 'em coming.
Cheers.
Hi Sean, that is very kind! Thank you so much!
Thank you Sai and James for a very interesting and informative video
Very interesting! I love, in the beginning of the video, how Sai tries NOT to smile and look at the camera! LOL!! A star is born!! :)
I congratulate you for this exhibition of woods very educational and made was very good original and different ideas and the feminine touch of the Girl excellent and different
Congratulations greetings from Mexico
On Aruba we also have the axe breaker tree. Till this day the hardest wood I have personally have come across. Ow I forgot we call it kibrahacha. The papiamento name sounds almost identical, we say kibrahacha instead of quebrahacha. I did not expect to see that one in your list.
Thanks for the demo, very informative
Fun, interesting, and informative!
❤❤❤
As a son of a carpenter in the Philippines, I have seen lots of wood…rosewood/nara and ebony/ironwood are my favorite😊, however, it is getting harder and harder to get a hand on these woods so we sorted to mahogany and we kept pieces of furniture made from these woods for ourselves😂…the family shifted to working with aluminum windows, cabinets and upholstery 😅
Very cool video! I'd be interested in seeing what would happen if they were all stuck together and put in the tank.
Yep just watched it again lol.. That was a brilliant display and Sai's delivery was superb ! Balsa is 10x the density of Lignum.. The float test..! Awesome man and fact that I'm sitting here with the first full set of your blocks you have sent out makes me smile so much.I'm even wearing a 'Kings Comm' T-shirt right now.Great clip my brother
Very nice comparison. Interesting to see the differences. Nice work everyone!!
Nice video. Something that would be interesting if you decide to make another would be to talk about hardness in addition to density.
I live in Bolivia, SA and we have Guayacaun, what you call Lignum Vitae (tree of life). It smells so good when you cut a little of it but after cutting it for a few days the smell starts to get to me. It makes beautiful furniture and doors but is mostly used in making small tourist items from what I have seen . I cut blanks for a couple hundred flutes one day but went through a few saw blades.
My favorite though, is Tajibo (some call it Ipe). Most of the things I make are made from this. It isn't as dense as Lignum but it doesn't float either. My other favorite is called Roble, which translates to Oak but is a lot lighter and oily. It also has a pleasant smell when cutting.
Hi Keni, that’s amazing. I wish we were able to directly import that wood from Bolivia. We love working with both Guayacaun, and Ipe! Thank you for sharing that info.
I just completed carving a hatchet handle out of Ipe by hand. What a chore that was. Turned out well for what it took to carve it. I won't try it again.
Love this! Wood working videos for nerds!
Outstanding educational video. Not only learning about the different types of woods, and their densities, but a geography lesson as to where they come from throughout the world. Nice to see Sai in action and not just "photo-bombing,"........lol. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.
Very cool experiment! I was surprised by the balsa being able to float the lignum vitae!
Wow, another incredible video. These educational videos are just what are needed. Thank you!
creative video. makes you think about the characteristics of different species of wood.
Very nice video, it's amazing to see woodworkers that love wood like you guys, and Sai is probably a better woodworker than the average Joe (me included), looking at this video, you have to realize that trees are the most important species on the planet, tree provides so much when alive; generating oxygen from bad gases, providing shelter and shade and housing for animals, holding the ground from erosion, providing material for building houses, furniture and more, used for tools, hunting, weapons, source of heat for humanity to warm us and preparing food... the list is almost endless... Thank God for Trees!!!
Very useful and inspiring.
Well done Sai , you did an amazing job .
Thanks for the education on wood James and family. Love your videos!!
Excelente aula, sua filhinha é uma ótima professora. Parabéns a todos e obrigado por mais este vídeo. Abraços a toda família do Brasil
Very good demonstration
Hey there bud!! I enjoyed the video, it was very informative intriguingly interesting. I especially loved the water test, that was pretty awesome. I'm a newbie in the wood game, I just recently found myself very interested in rocks gems wood and various metals and paints
Wow some beautiful amazing species of wood there thanks for sharing james
What a great video! As usual very informative. Great to hear Sai, she is a lovely and intelligent young lady!
Hi! Thank you. Sai was so nervous, but she really wanted to do this video. I’m very happy she did, since she had a lot of fun!
Love it James! I thought it would be cool if you could possibly show pictures of the tree these come from!!
From the sinking woods which would you recomend to try to make a fishing lure out of?
Awesome demonstration. Another great video. Thanks.
Very cool video!! Interesting to see how they act in water. 👍👍
Oak is on of my faves. I know its a "simple wood" anyone can get but its very pretty
I just saw this! I love it ❤️
What a neat demonstration 👍
You guys are so very smart 😀
I love Sai talking in this video ❤️
❤️LTKs❤️
exellent video. I made the cabinets for my house with bubinga and many tools with exotic woods, and a big table 7' x 4' x 3" t, with mesquite, thanks
That was really cool and educational. Thanks.
great info for wooden fishing lures makers
thank you wood is so pretty and so many colors
James - really nice to see a visual demo of wood density, shows the differences. I have a fairly old woodworking manual that suggests a species called Brazil Wood is marginally denser than Lignum but I'm not sure what that is and suspect which piece of wood you test varies to the extent that the results are not entirely representative, so maybe it's not!
Using this video in my Mechanical Engineering class showing the stability and instability of cubes in water. Those cubes with density greater than 0.79 g/cm^3 (but less than 1.0) and those cubes with density less than 0.21 g/cm^3 will float in a stable horizontal position. The rest of them float in a tipped over position to find their stability (or sink). Pause at 0:53 for a good look at them.
why is it that the exotics are so dense? I mean what is so different about the surroundings that trees would evolve in such a way?
Amazing video man !!!!!!
Do you also offer a moot stander wood blocks ? Make it easyer to match woods for when I'm making stuff .
Interesting thing i found with yellow heart wood. It glows under a black light. I found this out when i was looking for the light switch in my shop and i had a black light in my pocket. I turned it on to find the switch and all of the sawdust from the yellow heart i cut the day before, lit up the shop under the black light.
Nicely done Sai 👍🏻
I’d like to see a guitar body made up of those blocks of various species, that would look so cool; a possible future build maybe !
This was cool!❤
Looks like Sai has her science project completed already for this school year! Very cool video and a nice change of pace from seeing sawdust fly!
Thank you! I’m glad you enjoyed it!
Super interesting! How many species of wood does your family have in its collection?
barbara kvistad bzz
Great video idea. Very interesting
I had no idea that there are types of wood that don't actually float. Mind blown! And your daughter is adorable btw.
Fantastic presentation!
Hi Alfred, thank you!
Never knew playing with woods could be so fun... perhaps my new found hobby.
That was fun! Thanks!
When you will have again this cube set for sale ? I am interested ...Greetings from Romania /Transylvania :)
Very cool way to explain the density of woods. Great job King Family
Thank you very much!
That was fun!!
If you don't submit that for a science grade you will be missing out!
"The Only Difference Between Screwing Around and Science Is Writing It Down". By Adam Savage
Hi Drew! Well, I am a scientist. And I concur!! haha.
This was very interesting and educational. James are the cubes marked in some way in the “Wood Species of the World Collection" ? Thanks.
Most interesting video-very educational
A fantastic presentation, you must be incredibly proud of both your daughters and it obvious you have a wonderfully close family. I’m new to woodworking and those woods were gorgeous, but something concerns me about exotics. We know deforestation is causing massive damage in parts of the world, so is there some international standard (I’m a Brit) that says its responsibly sourced?
Awesome learning about these exotic woods
I’m glad you enjoyed it.
What can you make just by using all of these wood pieces that has been shown on your video.
Your video is very informative and enjoyable to watch, and your daughter is beautiful.
Lots of love from Iran, by me and my girlfriend.
Great lesson, you made this very interesting!Thank you
Hi Steven, Thank you!
I like the demo and love the explanations there is a density scale!
Thank you!
The denser the wood, does not necessarily mean the harder the wood is- correct? Or does the least dense the wood is, indicate the softer the wood is?
As an acoustic guitar player I appreciate this. What about ebony or macassar ebony? What about Indian rosewood? Where do these fall in the sink or swim test? Thanks
I work with Osage Orange, known locally as Bodark or even Bois d'Ark if you're from the French Quarters and some samples I have will sink and others will float. It depends on how fresh cut it is and how near a knot it was cut from.
Nice . Fun to see .
James is a pro woodworker. Seems like he has a great family as well. I subscribed.
Great video and big up to Sai for speaking on camera!!!
What would happen if you stuck them all together?
Very interesting, informative, and well presented, thanks
Thank you Chris!
Awesome very very cool thank you
I had an uncle who had night sticks made of lignum vitae. A wonderful labor-saving device. One thump per person.
Cool video guys, well put together and interesting...
Thank you!!
What a fun and interesting video. Thank you James for putting this together. Now I know why the Bocote I used for rolling pin rests ruined my cheap Sears router bit!
Hi Michael, some of those harder woods are brutal on blades and bits. We go through a lot of drill bits drilling the heads of our Thor’s Hammer Mallets. It really can add to the cost of a project.
Very interesting video!!
Thats great !
Where can I find these wood samples ? Your website says Sold out ?
You need to get a piece of Acacia acuminata. We call it JAM. It smells delicious when you cut it. Native to South West, Western Australia. The colour variation is amazing also.
I wish I could!! So many amazing species in Australia that I just can’t get ahold of. So sad. I am very fortunate though that a Wonderful friend sent me some Australian Buloke!
To be honest I'd never heard of Buloke. I'll see what I can do. But one problem we have here is some timbers have multiple names, for same timber. Others have multiple species of different trees which share the same common name. Victoria Ash, Tasmanian Oak. Neither true ash nor oak.
@@LostWhits a lot of Australian timber common names are chosen for passing similarity to their European namesake.
Hey James, what about Ipe? 😬
Gosh, I wish I can send you some kamagong/Philippine ebony, tindalo, narra, yakal, molave. Or even just the coco lumber and rattan. They are all so beautiful.
Also magkono ironwood in the Philippines
I think "Narra" is mentioned here - the phil mahogany.
This was so interesting to watch!! New sub here
James and Sai, excellent video. Can you explain why Lignum, which is the densest, is not as hard as Quebracho please.
Hi Adrian, thank you. And sure. Here is your reason.
Hardness vs Density
Density is a physical property that measures the amount of matter contained within a given volume. The more matter you can pack into a certain volume, the denser that substance is. For example, iron is denser than water, and water is denser than air. Density is measured by taking the mass of the piece and dividing that by the volume. Commonly done in grams/ cubic centimeter. Wood densities can vary from 0.1 g/cm^3 to 1.4 g/cm^3.
On an interesting side note, no wood can have a density greater than 1.5 g/cm^3. (Water by comparison is 1 g/cm^3) This is because all of the cellular material that wood is composed of, plant cell walls, lignin, hemicellulose, etc; all have a density of almost exactly 1.5 g/cm^3. So assuming no water, and no air space, we would have the theoretically densest possible wood. Which would equal 1.5 g/cm^3. When we add in water, which is lower in density than that, and we add in air space, the density always goes down from the theoretical max.
Hardness is a physical property that measures a substance’s ability to resist deformation. For example, much less force is required to deform balsa wood than to deform oak. In wood, hardness is measured using the Janka scale. This is done by measuring the amount of force required (in pounds), that it takes to depress a steel ball of 0.444 inch diameter to a depth of exactly half of the ball’s diameter into the wood. Wood hardnesses can range from a Janka Hardness of 60 pounds-force to 5060 pounds-force. And it’s always calculated by averaging the test from different faces.
Although Density and Hardness are both separate properties, they are not completely independent of one another. As density goes up, so does hardness. But even so. They are not the same.
If we were to do a gross dissection of a tree, immediately under the bark, we find the cambium. This is the thin active layer that is responsible for the outward growth of the tree and development of rings. Below the cambium is the sapwood, which all woodworkers know about. This layer is living and wet, and is filled with the hollow tubes that transport water & nutrients up from the roots. The tubes are called xylem. Moving inward from the sapwood we get to the heartwood. This is the densest part of the tree and it is dead. All of the xylem have stopped working and have filled up with resins.
Next if we move down to a cellular level we can analyze the composition further. In a given cell, we find three main components, cellulose, lignin, and hemicellulose. About half of it is cellulose. That is the strong fibrous material. And about a quarter of it is lignin. This is the glue that binds the cellulose together. The cellulose forms long chains that go directionally up and down the length of the tree. The lignin is found in between, and is the glue that binds those long fibers together. The cellulose is actually much stronger than the lignin. It’s harder to break a board against the grain because you must break cellulose fibers. But with the grain you only have to break the lignin that is bonding the fibers together, which is much easier, since it’s weaker.
Which brings us to our next point. Most other building materials ie. steel, plastic, bricks, are isotropic, meaning they behave the same from any direction. Wood is not. Wood is what we call anisotropic, which means it has different properties in different directions. For example, you can break a board much easier with the grain than against it. For this reason when we measure hardness, we will measure on all faces of a board, and then average them. It’s also why end grain cutting boards are more durable than face grain ones. In contrast, if we used a piece of plastic for a cutting board, it would make no difference which side is up. Recognizing and using wood’s anisotropicity appropriately is one of the things that makes us good woodworkers.
Now, recognizing that wood has different properties when approached from different directions gives us the main clue we need to figure out how hardness varies from density. When we encounter the end grain with an object of a specific size, we encounter more cellulose fibers at once, this is one of the reasons that wood is harder on the end grain.
If we approach from the side, we will encounter a smaller number of these cellulose fibers at once. And hence it is weaker.
Now, we know that approaching more cellulose fibers means more hardness. So we can infer that if a wood has a higher count of cellulose fibers, it has a higher hardness.
The second of three reasons, is that the individual fibers of cellulose are thicker and stronger in a harder wood. So in addition to a higher quantity, each one is actually stronger & more resistant to deflection.
Third, the lignin, which is the organic adhesive that holds those wood fibers together exists is greater quantity, so the cellulose fibers are bonded together better.
Finally, in the heartwood of the tree where the xylem has filled with gums and resins, the resins play a critical part. Different trees have different compounds that make up their resins, and the trees that are harder, contain stronger, more resilient resins.
In summation,
the cellulose fibers in harder trees are in greater quantity,
they are less likely to break,
they are less likely to detach from one another,
and they are filled with stronger resins & gums.
Sources:
Handbook of Chemistry and Physics
94th edition
tyboomakbook.org/download.php?title=crc-handbook-of-chemistry-and-physics-94th-edition-free.pdf
Textbook of Dendrology
Hardin, James Walker, 1937
The Biology of Wood from Cell to Trees
www.newphytologist.org/img/upload/files/42nd%20NPS%20Abstract%20Book%205_7_18%20Online.pdf
The Wood Handbook: Wood as an Engineering Material
US Forest Products Laboratory
www.fpl.fs.fed.us/products/publications/several_pubs.php?grouping_id=100&header_id=p
Tree Trunk Biology and Basic Wood Structure
www.thoughtco.com/trunk-biology-1343512
WOW! Thank you for your detailed reply! I understood most of these principles before, but it would have been hard for me to explain it as well as you have.
Any chance you'll be selling these again in the future? Super cooooool!
If we get time to start making them again we will announce it. Thanks for watching and commenting.
Hey nice collection but you're missing some woods from South America that are pretty dense and beautiful like Greenheart, Wamara, Bulletwood and Mora.
So fascinating, if you could, you should give us examples of your projects based on the unfamiliar/expensive species you have! Also too, I plan on ordering a collection tomorrow 👍🏽
Hi! That’s a great idea! I’ll have to do that.
Have you seen my video on building an all wood vise out of exotic woods?
King's Fine Woodworking I’m going to watch that tonight! Thanks for replying so quickly!
I thought Brazilian Ipe or Ironwood was the hardest? I installed this on a friend's deck and it took a few drill bits to pilot through. Only a 5'x7' area. Big learning curve. It is so dense that it does not accept paint or stain but turns a nice gray after years. No splintesr and it is fireproof apparently! Am I wrong?
Lignum is, in fact, the 4th densest wood. Black Ironwood (Olea laurifolia) is the densest.