Zebra wood2/3/2024 Feeding the stock at a slight angle and using light cuts can reduce or eliminate damage. The wood also tends to tear out when planed. Zebrawood’s interlocked grain makes machining somewhat difficult, so go with carbide bits and cutters, slow feed rates, and light passes. You’ll find the most consistent and dramatic striping in quartersawn zebrawood. When buying several pieces, be sure the color and striping match. Suppliers sell both flatsawn and quartersawn zebrawood. You won’t find zebrawood at home centers or large lumberyards, as it’s mostly sold by retail specialty wood suppliers both at their stores and online. A 4 × 8 sheet of 1⁄42"-thick, paper-backed veneer costs about $160. Bowl blanks and thin stock are also available. Turning squares measuring 11⁄2 × 11⁄2 × 18" run about $15 3⁄4 × 3⁄4 × 5" pen blanks cost about $2. Stock in 8/4 thickness is usually available, as is FAS grade at higher prices. Zebrawood boards in 4/4 thickness sell for about $24 per board foot in Select & Better grade. However, it is far more plentiful and not nearly as pricey as exotics ebony or rosewood. The zebrawood tree species has bark that averages a whopping 1' thick! To facilitate hauling, the bark is stripped off the logs at the logging site, which adds to the wood’s cost.ĭue to the tree’s relative inaccessibility and intense labor needed at the logging site, zebrawood tends to be fairly expensive. In other than North American trade, wood from these trees may also be called “zebrano,” “African zebrawood,” and “zingana.” It’s a fact that… But the authentic zebrawood in the market comes from trees in the Microberlinia genus of the West African countries of Gabon and Cameroon. Where the wood comes fromĪs mentioned earlier, there are a number of tree species around the world that can produce lumber that resembles and is locally called zebrawood. Because of its hardness, it has been fashioned into skis and tool handles. In the not too distant past, it clad the dashboards of Cadillac and Mercedes-Benz vehicles. It’s also seen in handgun grips and exotic guitars. History in woodworkingĪs a decorative wood, zebrawood has been used in a limited way for veneer, wall paneling, custom furniture, inlay bandings, marquetry, specialty items, boxes, and turned objects. Quartersawing the logs always adds to the striped appearance. Some zebrawood has highly variable stripes with some lines much thicker than others. The stripes may be relatively consistent in some pieces but not others. The lighter background generally ranges from cream to soft golden yellow. Zebrawood’s dark stripes can range from shades of brown to black. These have thick bark and produce heavy, hard, coarse-textured heartwood of wonderful color and luster that’s also resistant to termites and other insects. It wasn’t until the early 1920s that the “zebrawood” term used in North America applied to Microberlinia brazzavillensis, a tree from West Africa, which today is the only source.Īfrican zebrawood comes from trees that grow up to 150' tall with trunk diameters of 4' to 5' feet. Still, European and American furnituremakers called it zebrawood until about 1860. The wood here, however, proved to be a species we now call goncalo alves. The wood became an immediate hit with English cabinetmakers, and it continued to be imported until 1786, when the British settlers could no longer supply the wood.īecause of the demand for this wood, another source had to be found, and one was in Brazil. At that time, it came from the Caribbean coastal region of what is now Honduras and Nicaragua and may have been a different species than the zebrawood we know today. So-called “zebrawood” was first mentioned in international trade in 1773 when it showed up in British customs records. You can’t always tell a wood by its stripes.
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