Wood Species

Name	Wood	Janka Rating
Cocobolo		1136

Cocobolo
Dalbergia retusa

Also known as: Funera, Granadillo, Nambar, Nicaragua Rosewood, Palisandro, Palo Negro

Origin: Pacific regions of Central America, from Panama to southwestern Mexico

Appearance:

Cocobolo is somewhat variable in color when freshly sawn, but the heartwood usually ages to a deep rich orange-red with black striping or mottling on exposure to light and air. This oily wood has a fine-to-medium texture with a straight interlocked grain and low luster. It is slightly pungent and fragrant when worked.

Resistance, Durability:

Denser and stronger than Brazilian rosewood, cocobolo is very hard and heavy, with high durability, stability, and resistance to decay and insects.

Janka Hardness: 1136

As a flooring choice, cocobolo is sixty percent harder than Douglas fir, thirteen percent harder than teak, sixteen percent softer than white oak, twenty-one percent softer than hard maple, close to sixty-nine percent as hard as wenge, and is roughly fifty-one percent as hard as santos mahogany's ranking of 2200.

Workability:

This wood has excellent machining characteristics. The natural oils in the wood give it a good polish, but make it unsuitable for gluing. Exposure to the fine dust may produce a rash on the skin resembling a poison ivy rash.

Main Uses:

Besides being used in wood flooring, cocobolo is highly favored in the cutlery trade for utensil handles. It is also commonly found in tool handles, carvings, jewelry boxes, canes, bowling bowls, buttons, musical and scientific instruments, decorative veneers and inlays, and other specialty items.

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.