machiche

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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

machiche / Lonchocarpus spp.
5" x 5" flat cut, 3.5" x 3.5" quartersawn, 1" x 1" end grain, and a 1/4" x 1/4" end grain closeup.

Diffuse porous with sparse, medium to large pores, randomly distributed, wing shaped aliform parenchyma (occasionally lozenge shaped) with thick confulent bands and occasional banded parenchyma. Frequent pore multiples, rays thin but visible at 10X. The growth rings are distinct, mainly because in the earlywood there is a thin area with no pores and sometimes very thin diffuse-in-aggregates parenchyma (notably thinner than the confulent parenchyma in the latewood).

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

both sides of a sample plank of machiche / Lonchocarpus castilloi --- 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 machiche / Lonchocarpus rugosus --- 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

plank and closeup --- the closeup has accurate color; the distant shot is more washed out than the actual wood. This piece is on the reddish side of the color range for machiche and it has what I think of as the "classic" machiche grain pattern. A few pics downs from here, the same pattern shows up as a side grain on a quartersawn piece, so as you can see, the is the grain pattern that you get on a surface that is perpendicular to a radius of the tree and thus rift cut planks may not e have this pattern as either side grain OR face grain, as you can see from other samples below.

plank and end grain --- this piece,even more than most machiche, shows a markedly different color depending on how you move it in the light. You can get a pretty good idea of this by noticing that the dark-colored areas in the end grain pic on the right (particularly the very dark blotch) are light-colored in the face grain pic on the left. Also the apparently much lighter color of the right-most and left-most sections of the plank in the face grain show is due to the reflection of the lamps I used, not an actual difference in color in the plank, which is uniform throughout and is, on this piece, towards to brown end of the color range for machiche. NOTE: it is likely that this is not actually machiche. See the notes with the end grain update below. I thought for a moment that it might be tzalam but it is not.

end grain closeup and END GRAIN UPDATE of the piece directly above. I note that this piece does not have the confulent parenchyma that the other machiche species on this page have and that the North Carolina State University anatomy web site shows for all of its various Lonchocarpus samples. Also, it has an irregularity in the ray size that the others don't have. BUT ... there are numerous Lonchocarpus species that are sold as machiche and it is possible that this is one of them. I remain doubtful, but am leaving the piece on this page with this note.

color is accurate, no correction was needed, but I was up close with a flashbulb. See the color discussion with the web pics at the bottom of this page.

three views of a machiche plank before sanding --- it has a slight patina

same plank as above, but rough sanded

same plank yet again but now fine sanded and with an end grain shot

four views of the same plank including side grain and end grain

HIGH GRIT END GRAIN CLOSEUP from directly above

same as above but moistened with water

several views of the same plank, which has sapwood on one surface and as you can see, the "fact sheet" report that the sapwood is sharply demarcated from the heartwood is clearly not always correct.

views of some small planks/sticks that have been rough sanded

views of some of the same planks as above after fine sanded (the butt end was NOT fine sanded)

another plank, raw

plank and closeup

same plank as directly above, but a slanted-angle pic to show the grain better.

plank and end grain

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

three planks and end grain --- these were all resawn from the same larger plank and the middle one of these smaller planks was the outside of the larger plank and so has an age patina that the freshly cut surfaces of the other planks do not have. The end grain of the middle plank was likewise the outer end whereas the other ends are freshly cut.

planks

sticks

web pics:

web pic of a plank I bought on eBay --- I have not yet taken any of my own pics of the plank, but will do so soon

planks and closeup

a plank that has been moistened on the surface but not on the end

plank listed as "swirly" grain

turning stock

this picture is identical in color to one of the lots that my own sample was taken from. It's a good example of what I have pointed out in several places on this site which is that there seems to be a fairly common condition of lighting that causes digital cameras to show brown wood as purple. I asked the vendor about this and his only comment was "the lighting was wrong". Immediately below are two pictures from the same vendor of the SAME set of sticks, but the first pic has the correct color and the 2nd pic has a bogus purple.

The pieces in this section are all from the BogusColorVendor so I assume that the red/orange colors are just their usual dishonesty and that the actual colors are much less red/orange.

planks

plank and closeup