bloodwood

open main page for all woods open page 2 for articles

NOTE: there is rarely any "standard" or "typical" look for a wood so take what's in this table with a grain of salt
the REST of the pictures on this page will give you a better overall feel for this wood

bloodwood / Brosimum spp.
5" x 5" flat cut, 5" x 5" quartersawn, 1" wide end grain, and a 1/4" x 1/4" end grain closeup.

diffuse porous with moderate sized, fairly sparse pores, sometimes with winged aliform parenchyma, sometimes not in which case there is clear vasicentric parenchyma, radial pore multiples are common, ray strength varies from nearly invisible to very clear at 10X, growth ring boundaries are often vague

Brosimum spp. of the family Moraceae. Primarily, this is Brosimum rubescens (syn. Brosimum paraense) but it also includes

Brosimum angustifolium --- Mayan bloodwood

Brosimum caloxylon --- bloodwood, cacique bloodwood, satine

Brosimum conduru --- cacique bloodwood

Brosimum rubescens (syn. Brosimum paraense) --- bloodwood, cacique bloodwood, satine bloodwood, cacique, satine

my samples:
NOTE: these pics were all taken in very bright incandescent lighting ("soft white" at 2700K)
colors will vary under other lighting conditions

COLOR CHANGE IN BLOODWOOD

examples of the way in which bloodwood darkens over time. The first two pics are of a bowl separated in time by about 12 years. The finish is three thick coats of brushed-on polyurethane with a UV blocker but over time the wood still darkened, as you see. Both pics were taken in bright light. Looked at today in normal light, the bowl is VERY dark, but discernably red. The very bottom of the bowl, which was never exposed to light, is basically unchanged. The second set of pics is of the bottom of a different bowl that is shown over a span of about 10 years. It had the same finish and as you can see, the wood turned and extremely dark brown with little hint of red.

both sides of a sample plank of bloodwood / Brosimum rubescens --- HUGE enlargements are present. This sample was loaned to me by David Clark whom I thank for this and other contributions to the site.

end grain and end grain closeup of the piece directly above

both sides of a sample plank of dukaliballi / Brosimum spp. --- HUGE enlargements are present. This sample was loaned to me by David Clark whom I thank for this and other contributions to the site.

end grain and end grain closeup of the piece directly above

END GRAIN UPDATE from directly above

both sides of a sample plank of bloodwood / Brosimum spp. --- HUGE enlargements are present. This sample was loaned to me by David Clark whom I thank for this and other contributions to the site.

end grain and end grain closeup of the piece directly above

END GRAIN UPDATE from directly above

both sides of a sample plank of bloodwood / Brosimum spp. --- HUGE enlargements are present. This sample was loaned to me by David Clark whom I thank for this and other contributions to the site.

end grain and end grain closeup of the piece directly above

END GRAIN UPDATE from directly above

end grain and end grain closeup of the piece directly above

END GRAIN UPDATE from directly above

both sides of a sample plank of satine (bloodwood) / Brosimum rubescens --- HUGE enlargements are present.

end grain and HIGH GRIT END GRAIN CLOSEUP of the piece directly above

an extra HIGH GRIT END GRAIN CLOSEUP (of a piece not otherwise shown on this page) plus a face grain closeup. Both of these were taken just to give another view of anatomical characteristics. The face grain shot is particularly interesting at the 2nd enlargement.

plank, closeup, and end grain. I bought this piece because of the knotholes that make the grain more swirly than is normal for this species. The color on the end-grain is more purple than is present in the wood. The end is rough-cut and clearly shows the saw marks, which I point out just so you won't think there's some kind of ray pattern in the wood. The end grain shot a couple of pics down from here shows the actual smooth end that is typical of the species.

another plank (and closeup) that was cut from the same long plank as the one directly above

a couple of nice pieces I bought off of the Wood Barter forum. Their density is 59 lbs/cuft

2 different planks from 2 different vendors, and a set of small sticks from yet another vendor. The colors in these are accurate but somehow seem just slightly more rich than the actual wood, although once any kind of finishing agent is applied the wood will look even more rich than this, as you can see from the bowl at the bottom of the page. As you can see, there is considerable consistency from piece to piece.

end grain of the first piece directly above

end grain closeup and END GRAIN UPDATE of the piece directly above

a set of 18" long, 1"x1" spindle sticks I bought from the BogusColorVendor in 2021 and then their hilariously dishonest pic of a few of them. I know the vendor so knew in advance that their bright neon red pics were just silly. If you go to the 2nd enlargement you might want to put on some sunglasses first. There has never been a piece of bloodwood that was anywhere near the color shown in their pics.

a couple of 2-foot long 2"x2" turning sticks that I bought based on a generic pic. Big mistake. I couldn't get the color to come out quite right. The upper one may well be purpleheart and the second one IS that tanish color --- probably the worst piece of bloodwood I've ever bought. Also, even though the ends are sealed, the first one is developing significant cracks along the whole length. Bummer.

a couple of small planks that look just a little more faded in the pic than the wood really looks.

plank --- the dark color of this plank compared to, for example, the ones directly above, is correct and shows some of the color range of this species.

closeup of the plank directly above. The darker color of the distance shot is correct --- the brighter color of this closeup is an effect of the bright light and my inability to get full color correction on this pic.

two planks

plank with very accurate color

planks

plank with a more variegated color than is usually the case for bloodwood (see the "cacique" piece just down a little from here).

plank and end grain --- this is a smaller piece of the larger plank directly above and the color of the face surface pic is too light.

end grain closeup of the piece directly above

These are all from a plank that I bought about 1985 as "cacique", before I know anything about exotic woods, and I did not know it was bloodwood. It was only recently that I became aware that it is bloodwood and coincidentally happened to purchase some bloodwood planks that have a similar appearance, which is more variegated than the more normal uniform red color of bloodwood. One of the recently purchased planks is shown directly above this section.

small piece showing face grain, end grain, and side grain --- colors are accurate except for the side grain having just a shade too much violet/purple.

end grain closeup from the piece directly above --- this butt end has been moderately fine sanded (even though some of the coarser sanding marks were not fully sanded out) and so the pores have filled with fine dust. This butt end feels like glass to the touch --- this is a very dense wood.

HIGH GRIT END GRAIN CLOSEUP from directly above

plank and end grain of a piece that was cut from the same large plank as the sample above, but this one has been oiled. As you can see, the oil darkens the color somewhat, but not enormously. The orange stripe running through the middle sample really adds a lot to the beauty of the piece. The side-on pic shows the color accurately but the end grain pic is not color corrected and is too dark and does not show the orange stripe well at all.

END GRAIN UPDATE from directly above

I had another sample that was half oiled and half raw but I can't find it and the only pic I have of it is this HIGH GRIT END GRAIN CLOSEUP of the raw half

end of cacique section

planks

plank that almost doesn't look like bloodwood --- in fact, when I first saw it, I though it was ribbon stripe mahogany, but it's too red and to heavy for that and the dealer who sold it to me is reliable, so I believe it is bloodwood.

both sides of a particularly interesting striped plank with white rot

closeup of the plank directly above --- very bright direct light makes the closeup appear lighter in color than the distance shots. The distance shots are more accurate in color.

small planks with striping

plank --- it looks better in reality than it does in this pic

plank chosen for it's light crotch area

wide plank

planks shot at a lumber yard

veneer

veneer and closeup

veneer and closeup --- the closeup pic shows the wood as slightly lighter than it really is.

three veneer sheets with enlargements available.

quartersawn bloodwood veneer --- HUGE enlargements are present. This part of a collection which is discussed here: COLLECTION D

web pics:

plank with wet and dry sections

planks

planks with particularly unlikely colors

planks showing the striping that can sometimes occur in bloodwood

planks with a light color that is outside of my experience for this wood, but could be correct --- could be a weak color heartwood section next to sapwood.

turning sticks with a brown color that is outside my experience with this species.

misc planks and turning stock of bloodwood / Brosimum paraense (a synonym for Brosimum rubescens), all from the same vendor and all entirely slathered in wax (thus the extra rich color). Both levels of enlargement are present

planks, all from the same vendor, with at least a slight over saturation in the color --- enlargement are present for all (HUGE for most)

plank with a color that is heavily over saturated

turning stock and planks listed as bloodwood / Brosimum paraense (a synonym for Brosimum rubescens). The color on the planks is an unrealistic neon red.

turning stock

bookmatched pair with a very unlikely irridescent orange color

waxed plank

a "strawberry colored" blood wood plank and closeup. I believe the "strawberry" designation is purely descriptive and not indicative of a particular species

veneer --- some of this looks much more brown than I am accustomed to seeing in bloodwood, but that could be because the veneer takes on an aged look much more quickly than planks. I know that effect to be the case with bocote, for example, so it could be true here as well. As you can see up at the top of this page, the bloodwood veneer that I have is a deep blood red, but as I write this that veneer is newly arrived and I don't yet know whether or not it will turn brown with age; according to the research I've done (see the Fact Sheet), most reports say it should not age to brown but one report says it will.

veneer listed as muirapiranga / Brosimum rubescens

veneer sheet and closeup

spalted

turning block with spalted sapwood

this one is from the BogusColorVendor. On this particular piece, the wood itself is very red, so their normal massive overcorrection towards the red isn't as obvious as in many of their woods. See tulipwood or pink ivory for more obvious examples of their work. Bloodwood doesn't tend to be the really bright red they show here.

pens made from bloodwood burl

this bowl seems lighter to me than is normal for bloodwood; contrast it with my bowl at the bottom of this page.

very nice fancy bowl of bloodwood (it was listed as satine)

amazing piece of bloodwood art labeled, appropriately, as a "splash" bowl. Turned and carved, I find this just beautiful.

bowl

vase

bloodwood humidor which, like the bowl directly above, seems to me to be a lot lighter than any bloodwood I've experienced, but hey what do I know?

very nice jewlery box made from curly bloodwood, which the correspondent who sent the pics (Eric Schulz, whom I thank) says he has not seen before or since. I have not run across any curly bloodwood myself, nor have I found pics on the web of any, so I'd agree w/ Eric that it is rare. The enlargements show the curl better.

Correspondent James Parker tells me he used to work in a lumber yard and has seen thousands of board feet of blood wood and only one single plank of all that was curly.

a bloodwood bowl, 6.5" in diameter and 3" high, turned from a single block and finished in polyurethane (several coats, with UV blocker). I love this bowl, not because it's anything anyone else would consider particularly special, but because it's the very first bowl I ever turned. It's thick (the whole thing is as thick as the rim) and somewhat clunky because I didn't trust myself or the wood enough to try to make it any thiner. No color correction was done or needed; this is exactly what it looks like, although in anything but a bright ambient light, it looks somewhat darker. LATER: As you can see in the comparison shots at the very top of this page, it is now noticibly darker than when it was first finished in the non-UV-blocker polyurethane. The bottom of the bowl, which is NOT exposed to light, is noticibly lighter than the top and looks almost unchanged in color.

bowls by Bryan Nelson (NelsonWood). Bryan fine-polishes his bowls with 1200 or even higher grit sandpaper while they are spinning at high speed on the lathe and then finishes them there with a friction polish of his own devising, thus achieving a shine and color vibrancy that is beautiful to behold, although these bowls are definitely brighter than any redwood I have experienced. The first is about 6" across, the second 4", and the third 8".