satinwood

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SATINWOOD

botanical name unknown
There are at least 38 species from 25 genera that have the word satinwood as all or part of one or more of their common names. There are numerous woods that have "satinwood" as all or part of one or more of their common names but should not AND "satinwood" is a name that has some marketing appeal so not surprisingly it is often applied to woods that have nothing to do with satinwood, so you should be wary of any wood called "satinwood".

I consider "true" satinwood to be limited to Chloroxylon swietenia (Ceylon satinwood or East Indian satinwood) and Zanthoxylum flavum (West Indies satinwood, Jamaican satinwood) and it is my INTENT that only those woods apprear on this page, but I have included many pieces that were listed simply as "satinwood" and I certainly don't guarantee that they really are.

Most of the woods that are listed as "satinwood" have other, more approrpiate common names under which they are listed on this site and these, along with ALL of the woods in my database that include the name satinwood, are discussed in this here: satinwood names

My thanks to Robert Wessling for alerting me to the fact that I had MANY pics on this page that should have been on other, more appropriate, pages on this site. I have made numerous corrections thanks to his alerting me to my mistakes, mostly by moving images off to the pyinma and movingui pages where they really belonged.

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 perfectly quartersawn sample plank of Ceylon (incorrectly stated as "Celon") satinwood / Choloroxylon swietenia --- HUGE enlargements are present

end grain and end grain closeup of the piece directly above

END GRAIN UPDATE from directly above

both sides of a sample plank of Ceylon satinwood / Choloroxylon swietenia (incorrectly stated as "Celon") --- 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 Ceylon (incorrectly stated as "Celon") satinwood / Choloroxylon swietenia --- 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 wood is a bit lighter than is shown in these pics (I had the ISO setting wrong except on the end grain update)

end grain and end grain closeup of the piece directly above

END GRAIN UPDATE from directly above

all 4 faces of a curly Ceylon satinwood turning stick. The first two are sanded and the second two have age patina. The first face showed a nice curl before I sanded off the patina and now it does still show a curl but not as strong and hard to see in the pics.

end grain and end grain closeup of the piece directly above

END GRAIN UPDATE from directly above

East Indian satinwood veneer sheet and closeup --- the color on the distance pic is accurate but the closeup is just a little too gold

This sheet of Ceylon satinwood veneer was loaned to me by John Koehn whom I thank for this and other contributions to the site.

sample veneer sheets of Ceylon satinwood / Chloroxylon swietenia --- HUGE enlargements are present. This part of a collection which is discussed here: COLLECTION D

East Indian satinwood veneer from COLLECTION E --- HUGE enlargements are present. Some of the darkening may be dirt but I think it's mostly just an age patina.

figured East Indian satinwood veneer from COLLECTION E --- HUGE enlargements are present. Some of the darkening may be dirt but I think it's mostly just an age patina and this is one of the pieces with obvious water stain.

web pics:

just listed as satinwood with no indication of species --- shows a wet section and a dry section

planks listed as satinwood with no indication of species

plankslisted as satinwood / Chloroxylon swietenia

plank and closeup listed as satinwood / Chloroxylon swietenia

planks and closeup listed as satinwood / Chloroxylon swietenia

planks listed as satinwood / Chloroxylon swietenia

all listed as satinwood veneer with no indication of species

Ceylon satinwood planks and turning stock

Misc planks and turning stock of Ceylon satinwood / Chloroxylon swietenia, all from the same vendor. Some of these are figured.

figured Ceylon satinwood

figured Ceylon satinwood veneer

Ceylon satinwood veneer

veneer listed as satinwood / Choloroxylon swietenia

listed as bee's wing Ceylon satinwood veneer, but I think the bee's wing designation is just some vendors hype --- some of the undesignated figures in the pics of veneer directly above have a much stronger figure than this piece.

veneer listed as East Indian / Chloroxylon swietenia (which is the same as Ceylon satinwood). These four sheets are flat cut, flat cut figured, quartersawn, and quartersawn figured