Wood Species

Name	Wood	Janka Rating
Cork		-

Cork
Quercus suber

To the left is Cork in it's natural hue. The example on the right has been colored.

Also known as: Cork Oak

The wood most commonly referred to as cork is actually the bark of the Cork Oak tree. Once removed, the tree regrows the bark with no lasting damage to the plant. After 8 to 10 years, the bark can be harvested again. A great example of a renewable resource.

Origin: Portugal, Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and the Mediterranean Europe Basin and nearby Atlantic Coastal area.

Appearance:

Comprised of a nearly-countless number of individual air-filled cells, cork offers a very unique appearance. Depending upon how the flattened bark is cut, cork can reveal any of a number of distinctive surface designs.

Resistance, Durability:

Cork is impervious to water due to the interconnected nature of its "honeycombed" and airtight cells. The product has strong elastic properties making it a lower-impact flooring option. Cork is light in weight and is also a good heat insulator. The product is naturally resistant to insect attack and fire when untreated. The wood is reported to have a slight odor.

Janka Hardness: -

As a flooring choice, cork is a very soft flooring option. Its pliant nature and unique character more than makes up for this fact however.

Workability:

Because it is a softer wood, cork does not offer much resistance to cutting tools.

Main Uses:

Cork has been most widely used over the centuries as a stopper for bottling due to its water-resistant properties. Other uses include life jackets, buoys, gaskets, flooring, sound dampening products, bulletin boards, paneling, wainscottting, and sub-flooring.

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.