has anyone tried this wood named Ayous (Triplochiton scleroxylon)to make a hollw wooden board?
Today at work I got some wood samples of roof panels and between them there was a sample made of Ayous wood.
It’s very light (it’s almost half the weight of pitch pine wood) and has a very bright color. It comes from Africa (ok Africa is big, but I don’t have other feedback).
The scientific name (scleroxylon) in greek means “hard wood” , so it may have properties that are not suitable for board making, but it’s really light and when put into water (I guess my boss is wondering why that piece was wet…) it has a very good buoyancy. I mean that the most of it stays over the water surface.
Also, doesn’t seem to absorb much water.
It could be a good material, let me know if you have any info about it.
Here in France it’s usally maketed as Samba. Relatively easy to find and easy to work with, not too expensive either.
I did a sandwich diamond-tailed egg using 3mm samba skins for Mana Moana a while back… http://www.mana-moana.com and then click on the “news” link to get a glimpse at it. Sorry, those are the only pictures I know of from that board. The wood was heavier than balsa, but tight-grained and easy to shape and sand. Didn’t drink too much resin, either. That one’s with a 13kg eps core, 4oz interior glass, and 6+4 deck/6 exterior glass.
The feedback that we got from the rider was that the board had good drive, didn’t vibrate at all in the chop, was extremely fast, and is near bulletproff. So I suppose we’ll call that a successful trial.
I believe we did one samba longboard as well, I’ll try to find some pics of that board.
Lastly, I’m not sure if it’s still considered endangered in some circles or not, but that might be worth checking into if you’re concerned from an environmental point of view.
I like it very much! Actually it’s the kind of board I had in mind to build next. This is luck…
After your information about samba/ayous wood I had a search on the net and I found out that its specific weight varies from 350 to 450 kg/m3, while balsa it’s around 160 kg/m3.
It’s not like balsa but it’s always lighter than many other woods.
I hope there is someone near Genova that sells it.
I also found on the greenpeace site that it has been massively used in the last years so the UN recommends its protection.
If you can’t find it, try OBECHE. 380kg/cu.m. Works really easily, glues well lacke grain character. We’re doing a Jensen board with Red cedar and obeche strips