Sweet smell of success: fragrant etimoe offers dramatic-looking veneer choices.[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] A West African West Africa A region of western Africa between the Sahara Desert and the Gulf of Guinea. It was largely controlled by colonial powers until the 20th century. West African adj. & n. native, etimoe has a wide range of looks and applications, including flooring, paneling, turnery, vehicle bodies, using the seeds for tobacco or snuff, and using the resin to make scents. It also is considered a popular decoration wood in southern Europe Southern Europe or sometimes Mediterranean Europe is a region of the European continent. There is no clear definition of the term which can vary depending on whether geographic, cultural, linguistic or historical factors are taken into account. , where one of its uses is being sliced in figured or specialty veneer for furniture and architectural woodworking. The veneer is slowly gaining popularity again in the United States. Ben Clift, co-owner of RSVP (ReSerVation Protocol) A communications protocol that signals a router to reserve bandwidth for real time transmission. RSVP is designed to clear a path for audio and video traffic, eliminating annoying skips and hesitations. (Renaissance Specialty Veneer Products), Columbus, IN, said that his company maintains a substantial inventory of figured etimoe for the architectural market. "The preferred lengths seem always to be over 10 feet long and the figure types range from fiddleback to mottled mottled /mot·tled/ (mot´ld) marked by spots or blotches of different colors or shades. . We have stocked logs with rich dark contrasting chocolate colors to light tan with little contrast," he said. Clift added that etimoe looks great when finished. "Like most woods that are finished, the figure and color is amplified, bringing out all of the veneer's natural beauty. It is not uncommon to find logs that yield large quantities of veneer or lumber, making it a nice species to utilize for projects needing both character and sequence." The quarters with a high degree of figure seem to be the most popular with clients, especially on the West Coast, he added. Although he has not sold any recently, Myles Gilmer, president, Gilmer Wood Co., Portland, OR, said he is still a fan of etimoe. Gilmer said etimoe lumber is both hard and heavy. The heartwood heartwood, the central, woody core of a tree, no longer serving for the conduction of water and dissolved minerals; heartwood is usually denser and darker in color than the outer sapwood. varies in color from light reddish-brown to a little darker often veined with pink or red stripes and paler sapwood sapwood, relatively thin, youngest, outer part of the woody stem of a tree, the part that conducts water and dissolved materials. In the cross section of a tree, the sapwood is recognizable by its texture and color; it is softer and lighter than the inner heartwood. . "Etimoe has an almost metallic coppery sheen to it. It is a nice wood to mill, although you don't see much lumber in the U.S. We sold it in the '70s and '80s for furniture and custom boat building. The wood is very lustrous lus·trous adj. 1. Having a sheen or glow. 2. Gleaming with or as if with brilliant light; radiant. See Synonyms at bright. lus ," Gilmer said. Massive Resilience Etimoe is one of those woods that ranges from plain to fancy, and then very fancy. According to the book Veneers: A Fritz Kohl Handbook, "Etimoe numbers among many African wood species known as mass lumber, which due to their uniform and texture-less patterns, are considered being inferior quality wood. However, special wood patterns can be found, [such as figured and specialty etimoe, also known as tigerwood Tigerwood may refer to several species of trees:
Etimoe grows in a range from Guinea through Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Ghana and Nigeria. In both the lumber and veneer form, etimoe is known for its strength and hardness. In addition, the wood is resilient, with a medium bending and crushing strength and low stiffness and resistance to shock loads. The wood's natural resins have a tendency to exude ex·ude v. To ooze or pass gradually out of a body structure or tissue. during steam bending, which makes the wood only moderately rated for these purposes. The same resins also pose a small problem in the working properties, such as during cutting. Experts recommend a reduction of the cutting angle to 20 degrees when planing or moulding of quartered stock in order to avoid blunting of the cutting edges. Industry experts also caution that pre-boring of nail holes is necessary when nailing close to the edge of the wood in order to avoid splits. The wood glues well. Etimoe, like rosewood, also finishes beautifully. Healthy Species "It is an interesting tree, and like most trees of West Africa, it is used to make medicines," Gilmer said. "The wood also has a scented resin, which is used as a perfume in West Africa," he added. Gilmer referenced the book Woody Plants of Ghana by F.R. Irvine, in discussing the medicinal and non-lumber uses of etimoe. According to the book, "The seed, after the removal of the waxy waxy (wak´se) 1. composed of or covered by wax. 2. resembling wax, especially denoting some combination of pliability, paleness, and smoothness and luster. red aril aril Special covering of certain seeds that commonly develops from the seed stalk. It is often a bright-coloured fleshy envelope, as in such woody plants as the yews and nutmeg and in members of the arrowroot family, oxalis, and the castor-oil plant. , has an aromatic odor, especially when dry. This is also given off by the bark and wood, but not by the aril. The broken seeds form necklaces in Guinea and in Sierra Leone, the seeds are used to make a scented body pomade pomade (pō·mādˑ), n a substance that comprises the fat that contains fragrant materials produced by enfleurage. . Elsewhere, when pounded, they perfume snuff." Irvine also writes that the seeds contain an aromatic crystalline principle, known as coumarin coumarin /cou·ma·rin/ (koo´mah-rin) 1. a principle extracted from the tonka bean; it contains a factor, dicumarol, that inhibits hepatic synthesis of vitamin K–dependent coagulation factors, and a number of its derivatives are , and that the pounded leaves are used to make poultices. "The powdered dried leaves and bark, with baked and powdered clay, are applied to ulcerating sores. A cold infusion of the seeds is drunk as a remedy for vertigo." Editor's note: 129 Wood of the Month articles are now online, with more coming soon. Visit the Wood of the Month archive at www.iswonline.com [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Family Name Copaifera salikounda of the Family Leguminosae Common Names Etimoe, figured etimoe, olumni, allihia, nomatou, ashanti, etedua, buini, gum copal, and salikunda Height/Weight Average height is 100 feet, but trees can grow to 140 feet with diameters of 7 to 9 feet. Weight ranges from 46 to 50 pounds per cubic foot, with an average weight of 48 pounds per cubic foot and a specific gravity specific gravity, ratio of the weight of a given volume of a substance to the weight of an equal volume of some reference substance, or, equivalently, the ratio of the masses of equal volumes of the two substances. of 0.77. Properties Wood dries slowly, but with minimum degrade or other problems. Small movement in service. Wood works well with hand and machine tools. Resin content does not cause problems, although experts recommend use of carbide-tipped tools and a reduced cutting edge for best results. Pre-drilling recommended for nailing and screw joints to avoid splitting. |
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