Wood Species

Name	Wood	Janka Rating
Basswood		410

Basswood
Tilia americana

Also known as: Beetree, Limetree, Linden, Linn

Origin: North American

Appearance:

The sapwood of basswood is smooth white to pale brown, while the heartwood is a smooth white to more of a pale pink-brown in color. The species has a straight and fine grain. The wood is of a fine and uniform texture.

Resistance, Durability:

When using basswood, finishing of some sort is recommended as this species is not known to have a good resistance to attack from organisms. The wood remains smooth under friction and is reported to have a slight odor when freshly milled. Basswood dries easily and degrades very little in the process.

Janka Hardness: 410

As a flooring choice, basswood is a very soft wood. It's hardness is under one half that of southern yellow pine, one third that of red oak, one quarter of wenge, and is only approximately one sixth of santos mahogany's ranking of 2200.

Workability:

Basswood is a soft wood and thus responds very easily to machining. Basswood nails easily but its holding properties are only fair due to its softness. Staining is fair due to basswood's soft texture. Varnishes and enamel-based paints hold much better on this species. When working with basswood, care must be taken to avoid denting and marring due to its significant lack of hardness.

Main Uses:

Basswood's uses include hard wood flooring, guitar bodies, cabinetry, trunks, and boxing & crating.

What is a Janka Rating?

"It is one of the best measures of the ability of a wood species to withstand denting and wear. It is also a good indicator of how hard a species is to saw or nail.

The hardness of wood usually varies with the direction of the wood grain.

A common use of Janka hardness ratings is to determine whether a species is suitable for use as flooring."

Colored Bamboo

Some species have different janka ratings depending on how they have been treated.

Bamboo is one example of this. If left with a natural finish, Bamboo falls at 1380 on the hardness scale. If you carbonize it to get a darker color, the rank falls to 1180.