Yellowheart
How the Wood Scale Works
The scale above displays the measured values for this species of wood compared to Oak – a wood species most people are familiar with.
The red line shows the value for this wood, while the tan line represents the baseline value for Oak.
Common Names:
Yellowheart, Pau Amarello
Scientific Names:
Euxylophora paraensis
Why we use for Bokken:
Yellowheart is a beautiful wood used for great accents to darker woods. It is very durable and strong.
Appearance:
Heartwood color ranges from pale to golden yellow, darkening slightly with age. Sapwood is a pale yellow/white.
Grain:
Yellowheart has a fine texture and a naturally high luster. Its pores are very small: usually no grain filler is necessary to achieve a smooth and flat finish. The grain is usually straight, though some figured pieces may have wavy or interlocked grain.
Durability:
Rated as moderately durable in decay resistance, with mixed reports on its resistance to insect attacks.
Scent:
Yellowheart has a mild, unpleasant smell when being worked.
Safety:
Yellowheart has been reported to cause skin irritation in some people.
Availability:
Should be fairly inexpensive for an import, comparable to other economy imports such as Padauk or Purpleheart.
Other Comments:
Though many other species of wood can be yellow colored, perhaps few are so consistent and vibrant as Yellowheart. Some boards are a very uniform, bright yellow. Yellowheart has an unusually high amount of radial shrinkage when compared to its tangential shrinkage, giving it a remarkably low T/R ratio. Yellowheart (i.e. Pau Amarello) is a commercially important timber in Brazil, where it is widely harvested and used for a variety of purposes. (Yellowheart is also sometimes sold as “Brazilian Satinwood.” Some common uses for Yellowheart include: flooring, furniture, boat-building, and turned objects.
