Exotic Wood wenge

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WENGE

Millettia laurentii

A somewhat splintery, hard, porous African hardwood. The veneer tends to be somewhat fragile and will split easily along the grain, especially when quartersawn.

my samples:

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

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.

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

plank and end grain

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

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

plank shot at a lumber yard

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 an inch or so, there are many 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.

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

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

NOT a natural 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:

plank with wet and dry sections

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

web-pics of flat cut pieces that reflect nicely what the wood looks like. The color is most accurate in the last pic.

quartersawn plank with very accurate color and grain

rift cut plank with excellent color & grain representation

planks

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.

planks with reasonable color

planks with suspect orange tint

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 --- the color on the middle piece looks quite accurate and the others do not

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

the last pic is of the back side of stitched veneer, showing a common way of putting down a wavy line of a rubbery adhesive

guitar showing excellent use of approximately-bookmatched wenge