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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Shedua
Also known as Ovangkol, Shedua is harvested in tropical West Africa. Black Limba is harvested in tropical West Africa. It exhibits varying shades of yellowish to reddish brown with darker brown, gray, or black stripes, and sometimes seen with a curly or mottled grain pattern.
Overall a fairly easy wood to work, though Ovangkol contains silica and can therefore dull cutters prematurely. Also, if the grain is interlocked, or if there is other figure present in the wood, planing and other machining operations may be troublesome and cause tearout. Turns, glues and finishes well.
Common Uses: Veneer, furniture, cabinetry, turned objects, musical instruments, and flooring.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.
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.
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.
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.
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