bulletwood

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

bulletwood (aka massaranduba) / Manilkara spp. of the family Sapotaceae
see the table below for specific species names
3" x 3" flat cut, 3" x 3" quartersawn, 1" wide end grain, and a 1/4" x 1/4" end grain closeup.

Diffuse porous, medium sized pores, often in radial multiples, heavy diffuse-in-aggregates parenchyma plus vasicentric parenchyma and with closely spaced rays barely visible at 10X

See also sapodilla, which is a closely related wood.

This is a very hard, heavy, strong wood with some oiliness and can be worked to a smooth finish.

All of my samples on this page were sold to me as massaranduba which is another common name for this wood.

This wood acquires a patina that makes it appear to be a darker, but richer, red than it is when fresh. The wood, as you will see from the more detailed pics is a deep rich pink when first exposed.

Janka hardness 3130 to 3190 (compare to hard maple 1450, white oak 1350)

The vendor I bought these planks from pointed out that this wood is very similar to sapodilla, except, he says, this wood keeps the red color much better than sapodilla, which turns dull brown with exposure. As you will see from my exposure series on this wood, that does NOT seem to be the case. Like sapodilla this wood is a rich pink when first exposed but fairly quickly turns brown, thus creating a "rare steak" effect in planks that have developed the brown outside but have freshly exposed insides, as you can see below.

Sapodilla and bulletwood share several common names in the genus Manilkara. The only distinguishing features that I can find are: (1) sapodilla often has smaller pores and longer radial pore strands (2) some sapodilla has a distinct orange/tan color that you don't see in bulletwood (3) some bulletwood has banded parenchyma that is almost invisible at 10X whereas in sapodilla it is almost always quite visible at 10X (4) bulletwood generally tends to be darker in color
species	bulletwood	massaranduba	sapodilla
Manilkara bahamensis			✔
Manilkara bidentata	✔	✔	✔
Manilkara excisa			✔
Manilkara huberi	✔	✔	✔
Manilkara jaimiqui	✔	✔	✔
Manilkara kauki			✔
Manilkara littoralis	✔
Manilkara multinervis	✔
Manilkara riedleana	✔
Manilkara subsericea		✔
Manilkara valenzuelana			✔
Manilkara zapota			✔

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

bulletwood exposure series. The top pic is raw and the lower pic is at one month. Only the right part of the plank has been exposed to sunlight. To see the whole series, click here: bulletwood exposure series

small plank and end grain of massaranduba. This was cut from one of the other pieces shown down below. I took this new pic because the plank has been sitting in my garage for 8 to 10 years and I was a bit surprised at how vibrant the pink is in the freshly exposed end and side grains. The face grain is actually a darker shade of brown than the pic here shows.

both sides of a sample plank of massaranduba / Manilkara bidentata --- HUGE enlargements are present. The first side shown has been sanded down to 240 grit and thus has a fresh reddish color but the other side shows the typical brown patina that this wood acquires over time (and given enough time, the brown penetrates further and further into the wood)

end grain and end grain closeup of the piece directly above. The end was sanded to 240 grit so the patina is gone.

END GRAIN UPDATE from directly above

both sides of a sample plank of massaranduba / Manilkara bidentata --- HUGE enlargements are present.

end grain and end grain closeup of the piece directly above

END GRAIN UPDATE from directly above

plank listed as massaranduba

closeup of the plank directly above --- the web pics of this plank can be seen down below

plank listed as massaranduba

closeup of the plank directly above

plank cut from the larger one directly above and sanded for the pic, and an end grain shot. Note how the sanding has removed some of the patina and dulled the color of the surface and also note how much brigher the freshly exposed inside is.

end grain closeup of the piece directly above

END GRAIN UPDATE from directly above --- this was taken many years after the pics above and the "raw steak" pink color is long gone

plank listed as massaranduba

closeup of the plank directly above

plank listed as massaranduba

closeup of the plank directly above but taken under a brighter light

plank listed as massaranduba

closeup of the plank directly above

END GRAIN UPDATE from one of the planks shown above, done to add another sample to the anatomy page.

plank, cut from the larger one directly above and sanded for the pic, and an end grain shot. Note how the sanding has removed some of the patina and dulled the color of the surface and also note how much brigher the freshly exposed inside is.

end grain closeup of the piece directly above

END GRAIN UPDATE from directly above --- this was taken many years after the pics above and the "raw steak" pink color is long gone

both sides of a sample plank of figured bulletwood / Manilkara bidentata --- HUGE enlargements are present. This sample was loaned to me by David Clark whom I thank for this and other contributions to the site. Although the vendor uses the generic term "figured" I think it's fair to be more specific and say that this is curly. The curl is more apparent in the wood than in the pics, but the side grain shot directly below at least give a sense of it. What you CAN see clearly in the face grain is that this piece has wavy grain. This is a good example of a piece that has wavy grain AND curly figure. Wavy grain often does NOT have curly figure. In my experience, both wavy grain and curly figure are rare in bulletwood.

side grain showing curl

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

end grain and end grain closeup of the piece directly above

END GRAIN UPDATE from directly above

both sides of a sample plank of bulletwood / Manilkara 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. This sample was mistakenly identified as ipe by the vendor (see the next two samples directly below). Note that this sample, although possibly cut from the same log as the two directly below, was photographed soon after the log was cut up into samples and so still has the "rare steak" look, with the pink interior whereas the two below were cut long before being photographed and the end grain has taken on the dark color.

end grain and end grain closeup of the piece directly above

END GRAIN UPDATE from directly above

both sides of a sample plank of bulletwood --- HUGE enlargements are present. This sample and the one directly below this were contributed to the site by Gary Green, who sent them to me to verify the ID. He had mistakenly considered them to be ipe.

end grain and end grain closeup of the piece directly above

END GRAIN UPDATE from directly above

both sides of a sample plank of bulletwood --- HUGE enlargements are present. This sample and the one directly above this were contributed to the site by Gary Green, who sent them to me to verify the ID. He had mistakenly considered them to be ipe.

end grain and end grain closeup of the piece directly above

END GRAIN UPDATE from directly above

plank (listed as massaranduba) with heavy patina

NOTE: This is not bulletwood, it is a closely related speces, Manilkara albescens (common name acana) but has characteristics almost identical to bulletwood including the "raw steak" look of freshly cut end grain

both sides of a sample plank of acana / Manilkara albescens --- HUGE enlargements are present. This sample was loaned to me by David Clark whom I thank for this and other contributions to the site. The first side is freshly sanded and shows the raw steak color whereas the second side has been exposed for a while and shows the aged, solid-color look

end grain of both ends of the piece directly above; the first end has been exposed for a long time and shows a solid blood red color but the second end is more recently cut and shows the raw steak look

end grain closeup and END GRAIN UPDATE from directly above

web pics:

plank listed as massaranduba / Manilkara spp. and with wet and dry sections

planks

planks listed as massaranduba, another common name for the same wood

these planks were also listed as massaranduba, another common name for the same wood, but were posted by a vendor who often gets the colors quite wrong in his pics. I think the yellow/tan color is either wrong or the because pieces are actually sapadillo

plank listed as massaranduba / Manilkara elata

planks listed as bulletwood / Manilkara littoralis

planks listed as quinilla / Manilkara bidentata

plank listed as massaranduba and with a yellow color that I find completely unbelievable

these identical pics are from the same vendor, who listed both of them as massaranduba, with one of them specified as Manilkara bidentata and the other as Manilkara huberi. This is the kind of nonsensical crap that led me to create this site in the first place.

plank with curl

web pic of a plank that I bought (shown with my own samples above) --- you can see the match in my closeup, although the orientation is different. The rich red of this pic is non-existent in the wood itself (this is possibly because of oxidization between the time the vendor took the pics and the time I received the wood).

bowl by Steve Earis

pen turned from bulletwood / Manikara bidentata. Photograph contributed to the site by the pen turner, Bruce Selyem, whom I thank for this and other contributions to the site. The pen is finished with shellwax.