Wood Species

Name	Wood	Janka Rating
Ebony		3220

Ebony
Diospyros species

Also known as: Kanran, Kukuo (Gambia), Mgiriti, Msindi (Tanzania), Nyareti (Nigeria), Omenowa (Ghana)

Origin: Equatorial West Africa

Appearance:

When freshly cut, the sapwood of African ebony is pink-colored, but darkens to a pale red brown; whereas the heartwood shows a uniform jet-black or black-brown color, sometimes with streaks. Ebony has a very fine texture, with the grain ranging from straight to slightly interlocked, or even moderately curly. The luster of this wood may have an almost metallic appearance.

Resistance, Durability:

An attractive and popular wood with many decorative uses, ebony is notably hard, heavy, and strong, and also very resistant to termite attack.

Janka Hardness: 3220

As a flooring choice, ebony is an incredibly hard and durable one. It is over two thirds harder than merbau, is roughly one hundred and twenty-two percent harder than hard maple, over ninety-seven percent harder than wenge, and just over forty-six percent harder than santos mahogany's ranking of 2200.

Workability:

This highly durable wood is difficult to work with either machine or hand tools, due to its relative hardness; and, as any contractor or builder can tell you, it has a pronounced dulling effect on tool edges. It usually requires pre-drilling to nail or screw. However, it finishes to a naturally dark and polished surface. Note that prolonged exposure to ebony sawdust may cause dermatitis.

Main Uses:

Besides being used in hardwood flooring and inlaid work, ebony can be found in piano keys and other musical instruments, cutlery and tool handles, decorative carvings, and turnery.

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.