wenge

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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

wenge / Millettia laurentii
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 with exceptionally fat confluent parenchyma lines that often are so long that they seem like banded parenchyma (but are not). Pores are large and sparse and fall within the confluent parenchyma lines (which themselves may go on for long stretches without any pores). Growth rings are hard to distinguish and rays can be hard to see even at 10X.

A somewhat splintery, hard, porous African hardwood. The veneer tends to be somewhat fragile and will split easily along the grain, especially when quartersawn. The color is yellow/brown when first milled but over a month or two it darkens to brown with dark streaks and over a long time it darkens to a deep chocolate brown.

There is an obvious similarity of appearance between wenge and panga panga, and I have created a small page to discuss the differences, to the extent that one can see diferences. It is here: wenge vs panga panga. It should also be noted that the botanical designation Millettia stuhlmannii is sometimes used (incorrectly, I believe) for wenge whereas it really should only be used for panga panga

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 flat cut sample plank of wenge / Millettia laurentii --- HUGE enlargements are present. This sample was loaned to me by Mark Peet 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 wenge / Millettia laurentii --- 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 vendor listed this as quartersawn but it seems to me to be clearly rift cut (but with a face grain that is pretty much indistinguishable from true quartersawn).

end grain and end grain closeup of the piece directly above

END GRAIN UPDATE from directly above

both sides of a sample plank of wenge / Millettia laurentii --- HUGE enlargements are present. This sample was loaned to me by David Clark whom I thank for this and other contributions to the site. Note that the first face was sanded to 240 grit and the second face was not and this accounts for minor differences in color between the two (the second face still has a slight patina) and the better resolution of the detail characteristics as seen in the first one.

end grain and end grain closeup of the piece directly above

END GRAIN UPDATE from directly above

both sides of a sample plank of wenge / Millettia laurentii --- 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 wenge / Millettia laurentii --- HUGE enlargements are present.

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

plank and closeup --- I selected this piece because of the classic flat cut figure. Both levels of enlargement are present, so you can see how relatively grainy this wood is.

both edges of a plank where one edge is freshly cut and exhibits the light color that sometimes happens when the wood is freshly cut. This will darken over time until the light colored edge looks just like the dark colored edge.

closeup of the freshly cut surface shown directly above

both sides of a small piece --- HUGE enlargements are present for both these and the pic directly below and there is a slight red tint in all these pics that is not in the wood

end grain and end grain closeup of the piece directly above

END GRAIN UPDATE from directly above

The pics in this set are "mine" only in as much as they were contributed to the site by exotic wood importer Patrick Dean, whom I thank for this and other contributions to the site. Patrick had this to say about it:

Ex Northern Congo; very good size for this species. Top quality (A/B), only veneer is a higher grade. Over the years, I have developed something of an allergy to the dust from fresh sawn material … makes me nauseous. The culprit is that the cambium of Wenge is actually poisonous and, in my case, leaves you feeling like you had three too many beers the night before. A little factoid about this species is that every few decades, a grub worm infestation hits the forest and they like Wenge. You rarely see it on the outside of the log and the tree heals and leaves no evidence of the damage. An otherwise lovely looking logs can be riddled with it and renders the owner with a damaged ego.

the pics are of a 3 foot diameter wenge log and some planks cut from it. Notice how the color is yellow/brown. As mentioned in the characteristics at the top of the page, this is normal for freshly milled wood. It will darken quite a lot over time. HUGE enlargements are present but while the photography is excellent, the resolution is such that the second enlargement is noticeably pixelated.

two end grain shots of a smaller piece cut from the plank shown directly above. This is from the other side and the lighter areas are wider than the darker areas on this side, so the plank appears considerably lighter than the pics above. The vertical lighter stripes visible in the enlargements, particularly of the left pic, are sanding marks, not part of the grain. There is a reddish tint in these pics that is not in the wood.

two small quartersawn planks cut from the same board and shown here with the end grain of each. The end grain pics have been lightened just a little too much as I did the color correction (they come out almost black right out of the camera). The face-on pics are more accurate in color.

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

small piece, end grain closeup and END GRAIN UPDATE. I did this one just to get another end grain update on wenge. The pores are mostly clogged with sawdust. HUGE enlargements are present.

small piece, end grain closeup and END GRAIN UPDATE. I did this one just to get another end grain update on wenge. The pores are mostly clogged with sawdust. HUGE enlargements are present. The white vertical lines are sanding scratches filled with sawdust. After mistakenly leaving these deep coarse-grit scratches, I did the rest of the end grain update perfectly, so the fine grain details show up clearly.

plank and end grain; there is a greenish tint in these pics that is not in the wood

end grain closeup and END GRAIN UPDATE of the piece directly above --- this seems to be a rare case where the update doesn't show the fine grain detail any better than I had already captured but the darker color does show that the update polished the wood.

rift cut slab --- as you can see from the pics below, it's pretty much perfectly rift cut, so both face and side look like quartersawn surfaces. There is just a touch too much red in all 3 pics

end grain and end grain closeup of the piece directly above

two end sections cut from the same long plank

the middle section of the same plank as directly above, and a closeup

both sides of a wenge plank and a closeup

both sides of a sample plank of wenge / Millettia laurentii --- HUGE enlargements are present. This was cut from the larger plank directly above and the first face was sanded to 220 grit

end grain and end grain closeup of the piece directly above

face grain closeup of the sanded face and the END GRAIN UPDATE of the piece directly above

two sides of a small side-grain slice taken from the same plank as the samples above.

As you can see from the differences between the first two pieces of quartersawn and the 3rd set, which were flat-cut from the same plank as the quartersawn pieces, wenge is one of those woods where the type of cut and the face you're looking at make a huge difference in the appearance of the wood. All these pieces show up better if you click to enlarge.

a set of small planks

closeup of the plank with flat cut face grain.

closeup of a plank with quartersawn face grain.

some small planks, flat cut

the reverse side of the upper plank from the set above, showing some sapwood.

a bunch of small pieces from a mixed lot, and a closeup

a pen blank (donated by Jim Glynn --- thanks Jim)

planks shot in a lumber yard --- HUGE enlargements are present. I bought 4' off of this end of the right plank 'cause I figured the extreme cathedral grain would work well in my bowls. Pics of it are directly below

both sides of a plank and a closeup of each side --- HUGE enlargements are present for the closeups. I bought this one for the extreme cathedral grain

planks shot at 2 separate lumber yards

quartersawn veneer --- despite the "fact sheet"s statement that the heartwood is clearly defined, my experience with several different lots of veneer (which is the only place I've ever seen the sapwood) is that it is NOT sharply demarcated. Although the shading from heartwood to sapwood does not take more than a half-inch or so, there are many other woods where the line between the two is just that --- a line, with no shading at all, and that is not the case with the wenge I've seen. There is a red tint to this pic that is not in the wood. I DO see in some of the web pics below that the demarcation seems a bit sharper than on the veneer I've seen but it is still now a sharp line as it is in some woods.

quartersawn veneer with carefully corrected color --- although it sounds like a contradiction in terms, I don't know how to describe the color of these sheets other than to say that they are a very "bright black" color. What's shown here is more brown than the wood actually is.

two small pieces of flat cut veneer

flat cut veneer sheet and closeup

flat cut veneer sheet and closeup --- the distance pic has too much red in it; the closeup is accurate in color.

quartersawn veneer

quartersawn veneer with ray flakes --- usually, quartersawn wenge veneer is so coarse that it does not show ray flakes but this piece shows them very nicely

wenge veneer pics contributed by Danny Tjan, whom I thank for these and other contributions to the site.

NOT A RAW WOOD COLOR
a flooring sample that has been finished in some kind of hard, shiny, finishing agent

the piece directly above, after I sanded off the finish --- in doing the color correction, I inadvertently made this pic just a shade lighter than the actual wood.

web pics:

planks with wet and dry sections; the first was just listed as wenge, the second as wenge / Millettia laurentii

interesting shot of the end grain of a significant portion of a log --- this clearly shows how the color difference between early and late growth is substantial, which partly accounts for the extreme figure usually found in this wood.

three misc pieces of wenge / Millettia laurentii, all from the same vendor

slabs --- most of these have an unlikely orangish tint

flat cut planks

flat cut planks, all from the same vendor and all with both levels of enlargement. The color on these is a fairly ridiculous purple. I thought about just turning them all to black and white since I'm sure that would have presented something closer to the actual wood color than these, but I didn't do it.

quartersawn planks

rift cut plank with excellent color & grain representation

misc planks

planks and a closeup

flat cut bookmatched planks with an unlikely faded color

plank with a ridiculous/impossible purple color (for wenge) which is the kind of nonsense that got me to start this site in the first place.

quartersawn planks with a color that is probably more light brown than the wood really is

bookmatched plank pair

both sides and a closeup of a plank

flat cut planks with accurate representation of grain pattern but the orange color seems excessive --- the wood is probably much more of a uniform dark brown in reality.

I believe these two have been bleached and then stained with cherry or something like that. They certainly do not look like untouched wenge, although the grain pattern looks correct.

clearly wenge but with a hilarious color. I'm pretty sure that there is no set of chemicals that could give wenge this color so this has to be photoshopped

planks with reasonable color

planks with suspect orange tint

flat cut wenge scales

quartersawn wenge scales

turning stock

veneer --- grain shows up much more clearly in the enlargement

veneer with an unlikely golden color

veneer with a very unlikely purple color

flat cut veneer

misc veneer

veneer sheet closeups with both levels of enlargement

web-pics of wood that, if I saw the piece I might think "Gee, that's probably wenge". On the last one, you have to go to the full enlargement to see it clearly and when you do, you'll see that it's similar to my first sample.

misc web-pics