Imported Exotic Hardwoods
Stunning Wood From Around the World
If you’re looking for the perfect wood for a special project, look no further than Heartwood’s exotic hardwoods imported from all over the world. A wide range of colors, densities and unique characteristics can be found within our list of hardwoods below. You’re sure to find the species that captures your creative vision.
Common Uses
Furniture, cutting/charcuterie boards, interior trim, cabinetry, small specialty items, turned objects, musical instruments.
To learn more characteristics about these and other wood species, please visit The Wood Database, an excellent online resource for any woodworker.
These exotic hardwoods are the rare beauties of the wood industry, and as such, are usually reserved for crafted showpieces.
Black Limba
Black Limba is harvested in tropical West Africa. The heartwood is a light yellowish to golden brown, sometimes with grey to nearly black streaks and veins. Black Limba is easy to work with both hand and machine tools. It contains a small amount of silica, but blunting effect on cutters is usually small. Black Limba glues and finishes well.
Common Uses: Veneer, plywood, furniture, musical instruments (electric guitar bodies), and turned objects.
Thickness Available: 8/4
Bloodwood
Bloodwood is harvested in tropical South America and has heartwood that is a bright, vivid red. Color can darken to a darker brownish red over time with exposure to light. Applying a thick protective finish, and keeping the wood out of direct sunlight can help slow this color shift.
Bloodwood is extremely dense, and has a pronounced blunting effect on cutters. The wood tends to be brittle and can splinter easily while being worked. Those persistent enough to bear with the difficulties of working with Bloodwood to the finishing stage are rewarded with an exceptional and lustrous red surface.
Common Uses: Carvings, trim, inlays, furniture, guitars, knife handles, and turned objects.
Thickness Available: 4/4
Canarywood
A South American wood, Canarywood’s heartwood can be almost rainbow colored—with dark red streaks, along with the natural orange, yellow, and brown coloration. The pale yellow sapwood is sharply demarcated from the heartwood. Canarywood is easy to work with both hand and machine tools, though some tearout can occur during planing on pieces with wild or irregular grain. Has good dimensional stability. It turns, glues and finishes well.
Common Uses: Construction lumber, railroad crossties, flooring, veneers, boatbuilding, furniture, cabinetry, and turned items. Canarywood is said to have good acoustic properties, and is sometimes used for speaker enclosures and entertainment system cabinets.
Thickness Available: 4/4
Curly Maple
Called curly maple because the ripples in the grain pattern create a three dimensional effect that appears as if the grain has “curled” along the length of the board. It’s also referred to as fiddleback maple, in reference to its historic use for the backs and sides of violins.
Other Names: Fiddleback maple, tiger maple, flamed maple, rippled maple
Common Uses: Musical instruments, bar tops, cutting boards, butcher blocks and turned wood items.
Thickness Available: 4/4
Hard Maple
Hard Maple typically comes from northeastern North America. Unlike most other hardwoods, the sapwood of hard maple lumber is most commonly used rather than its heartwood. Sapwood color ranges from nearly white, to an off-white cream color, sometimes with a reddish or golden hue. The heartwood tends to be a darker reddish brown.
Fairly easy to work with both hand and machine tools, though slightly more difficult than soft maple due to hard maple’s higher density. Maple has a tendency to burn when being machined with high-speed cutters such as in a router. Turns, glues, and finishes well, though blotches can occur when staining, and a pre-conditioner, gel stain, or toner may be necessary to get an even color.
In tree form, hard maple is usually referred to as sugar maple, and is the tree most often tapped for maple syrup.
Common Uses: Flooring (from basketball courts and dance-floors to bowling alleys and residential), veneer, paper (pulpwood), musical instruments, cutting boards, butcher blocks, workbenches, baseball bats, and other turned objects and specialty wood items.
Thickness Available: 4/4, 8/4
Leopardwood
Leopardwood is found in Central and South America and has a very conspicuous flecking that gives this wood its namesake. Like other woods that exhibit the strongest figure in quartersawn pieces (such as Sycamore), Leopardwood has the most pronounced figure and displays the largest flecks when perfectly quartersawn. It can be fairly difficult to work because of its high density and tendency to tearout during planing. Leopardwood glues and finishes well.
Common Uses: Veneer, cabinetry, fine furniture, musical instruments (guitars), and turned objects.
Thickness Available: 4/4
Osage Orange
Osage Orange is found in the South-central U.S., primarily Texas. The heartwood is golden to bright yellow, which inevitably ages to a darker medium brown with time: primarily due to exposure to ultraviolet light. Osage Orange is extremely durable and is considered to be one of the most decay resistant woods in North America. Working this Osage Orange can be difficult due to its hardness and density, though it is reported to have little dulling effect on cutting edges. It turns well, and also takes stains, glues and finishes well.
Common Uses: Fence posts, dye, archery bows, musical instruments, turnings, and other small specialty wood items.
Thickness Available: 4/4
Padauk
Padauk has a very unique reddish orange coloration, and the wood is sometimes referred to by the name vermillion. It’s moderately heavy, strong, and stiff, with exceptional stability. Padauk is a popular hardwood among hobbyist woodworkers because of its unique color and relatively low cost. It also occupies a sweet spot in density where it’s sufficiently hard and dense for higher-wear applications, yet not so dense as to be excessively difficult to work.
Padauk’s heartwood color can vary, ranging from a pale pinkish orange to a deep brownish red. Most pieces tend to start a vibrant reddish orange when freshly cut, darkening substantially over time to a reddish/purplish brown (some lighter-colored pieces can age to a grayish brown). UV-inhibiting finishes may prolong, but not prevent the gradual color-shift of this brightly colored wood.
Common Uses: Veneer, flooring, turned objects, musical instruments, furniture, tool handles, and other small specialty wood objects.
Thickness Available: 4/4
Purpleheart
Purpleheart can be found in Central and South America, all the way from Mexico to Brazil. When freshly cut, the heartwood of purpleheart appears as a dull grayish/purplish brown. Upon exposure — usually within a few days — the wood becomes a deeper, eggplant purple. With further age and exposure to UV light, the wood becomes a dark brown with a hint of purple. This color-shift can be slowed and minimized by using a UV inhibiting finish on the wood.
Working with purpleheart can present some unique challenges: if the wood is heated with dull tools, or if cutter speeds are too high, purpleheart will exude a gummy resin that can clog tools and complicate the machining process. Depending on the grain orientation, can be difficult to plane without tearout. Purpleheart also has a moderate dulling effect on cutters.
Common Uses: Inlays/accent pieces, flooring, furniture, boatbuilding, heavy construction, and a variety of specialty wood items.
Thickness Available: 4/4
Sapele
Mahogany's First Cousin
The heartwood of Sapele, usually pronounced (sah-PELL-ey), is a golden to dark reddish brown, and the color tends to darken with age. Sapele has a fine uniform texture and good natural luster.
Sapele can be troublesome to work in some machining operations, (i.e., planing, routing, etc.), resulting in tearout due to its interlocked grain. It will also react when put into direct contact with iron, becoming discolored and stained. Sapele has a slight blunting effect on cutters, but it turns, glues, and finishes well.
Common Uses Include: Veneer, plywood, furniture, cabinetry, flooring, boatbuilding, musical instruments, turned objects, and other small wooden specialty items.
Thickness Available: 4/4, 8/4
Wenge
Wenge is an incredibly popular African hardwood that has excellent strength and hardness properties, though it’s much more frequently used for its rich dark brown color, which can be dark enough to be used as a substitute for ebony. It is a medium brown wood, sometimes with a reddish or yellowish hue, with nearly black streaks. Upon application of a wood finish (particularly an oil finish) the wood can become nearly black. However, unlike most other dark hardwoods, the heartwood of wenge can lighten (rather than darken) when exposed to sunlight.
Wenge can be difficult to work with hand and machine tools, and it can blunt tool edges. It sands unevenly due to the difference in density between light and dark areas. It’s also very splintery, and care must be used when handling unfinished wood with bare hands, as splinters can be very large and have an increased risk of infection. Very large pores can be difficult to fill if a perfectly smooth/level finish is desired.
Common Uses: Veneer, paneling, furniture, turned objects, and musical instruments.
Thickness Available: 4/4
Yellowheart
Commonly referred to as Pau Amarello— which is Portuguese for “yellow wood”— few woods are as consistent and vibrant a yellow as Yellowheart. Its color ranges from pale to golden yellow, darkening only slightly with age. The grain has a fine uniform texture and a naturally high luster. It’s normally easy to work with hand or machine tools, though it can be more difficult if interlocked or figured grain is present. Yellowheart also has a moderate blunting effect on cutters. It glues and finishes well.
Common Uses: Flooring, furniture, boatbuilding, accents, and turned objects.
Thickness Available: 4/4
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