Which Hardwoods Are The Hardest

This guide features 20 of the most abundant and most often used hardwood species.

Which hardwoods are the hardest.

A wide variety of domestic hardwoods in various thicknesses and price ranges. It s commonplace in furniture flooring trim and in places where a pale light colored wood is needed. It measures the force required to embed an 11 28 millimetres 0 444 in diameter steel ball halfway into a sample of wood. Wood hardness chart species alphabetical hardness species by hardness hardness mahogany honduran 800 padauk 1725 mahogany santos 2200 tabaccowood 1750 maple hard north american 1450 rosewood bolivian 1780 maple ivory 1500 bamboo carbonized 1800 maple soft 999 hickory 1820 merbau 1925 pecan 1820 mesquite 2345 yellowheart 1820.

Generally acknowledged as the hardest wood lignum vitae guaiacum sanctum and guaiacum officinale measures in at 4 500 pounds force lbf on the janka scale. An excellent selection of some of the most beautiful woods in the world. The wood from hardwood trees tends to be harder because the trees grow at a slower rate giving the wood its greater density. The guide to american hardwood species.

This light colored wood is seen almost as frequently as oak and is usually not stained a dark color but is kept a natural whitish cream or sometimes stained an amber yellow. Here s a guide to which species are the hardest. A common use of janka hardness ratings is to determine whether a species is suitable for use as flooring. If you don t see a thickness you want give us a call 1 877 232 3915 we can mill exactly what you need.

Softwoods such as fir pine and hemlock rarely work well as flooring materials except in a shop or utility area. If you re interested in buy it for life wood flooring you re going to need to make hardness and scratch resistance a priority in the hardwood flooring industry the janka hardness test is the standard approach to measuring how resistant a wood sample is to both denting and wear. The most durable flooring woods will be hardwoods such as oak walnut ebony maple ash and pecan. Consider verawood as a very close substitute.

As a resource american hardwoods are abundant renewing and sustainable and an excellent choice for eco effective design and building. That s more than twice as hard as osage orange one of the hardest domestic woods at 2 040 lbf and more than three times harder than red oak at 1 290 lbf. For the hardest woods you need to look for exotics not domestics. Hardwood lumber domestic hardwood.

If durability is a priority you re going to want hardwood. Widely accepted as the hardest wood in the world this wood has been listed as an endangered species and is listed in cites. The janka hardness test from the austrian born emigrant gabriel janka 1864 1932 measures the resistance of a sample of wood to denting and wear.