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CANARY

Centrolobium spp.

Centrolobium spp. of the family Leguminosae (subfamily Papilionoideae), the legume or pea family

A neotropical wood that is quite variable in color

My thanks to Paul van Rijckevorsel for this summary

My own experience has ranged from the fairly bland to planks that have marvelous red streaking, as you will see from my sample pics. Also, see the bowl at the bottom of this page for a good example of a colorful section.



my samples


plank and closeup --- I picked this one out of a lumber yard pile because of the extreme gold color


plank and closeup --- I picked this one out of a lumber yard pile because of the red streaking, which as you can see appears to accompany some bug holes (or as my friend Jim Glynn would tell, you, the streaking is due to bug poop)


the other end and a closeup, of the same plank as directly above


Some freshly cut small pieces off of the plank that is shown directly below. As you can see, the color of the freshly exposed wood is just slightly more dull than the wood that had its surface exposed for some time. Partly that's because the plank had been surfaced pretty nicely and these small pieces have been very rough sanded. The color on these pics is a little more dull than the actual wood, but the pics below show the wood as a little too rich. It's frustratingly difficult to get it just right !


both sides and end grain of a plank --- the first pic is of a side that has just been freshly exposed by heavy sanding and the second pic is of the opposite side which has been exposed for some time and has a bit of a patina, thus the difference in colors between the two pics.


end grain closeup of the piece directly above


Both sides of a plank and a closeup of each side. The closeups and the distance pics are upsidedown relative to each other. The color is actually somewhere between the slightly too light distance pics and the slightly too dark closeups, although both manage to make the wood appear just a hair richer than it really is. On the other hand, these pics are MUCH more accurate than what the vendor showed it as on eBay (see directly below).


This is how the vendor displayed the board shown in my own samples directly above. This was not the BogusColorVendor, and it is remotely conceivable that the yellow saturation in this pic was due to lighting, but I doubt it. I had to REALLY mess with the color settings to get my pic of the board to come out this yellow. Another excellent example of how vendors misrepresent their merchandise on eBay. I have now monitored this vendor for quite some time and can say with complete confidence that he is consistently dishonest in his representation of wood on ebay.


plank and end grain


plank and end closeup


plank, closeup, and end grain


plank closeup and two end grain shots


plank and end grain



two different sides of a stick and the end grain


stick



the next 3 planks were all cut from the same long plank and the reddish color is accurate


plank and closeup


plank and closeup


plank, closeup, and end grain


another plank and closeup


plank and end grain --- I bought this one because of the strong grain. The slightly orangish color is accurate, but the piece has not been sanded yet.


another plank, this one with some very nice red streaking


two planks --- colors are VERY accurate on this pic and the more yellow/green color in the lower plank is correct


small plank and end grain


end grain closeup of the piece directly above


small plank and end grain, showing some sapwood


end grain closeup of the piece directly above


plank and closeup showing nice "bug-poop" streak and some sapwood


yet another little plank


plank with sapwood --- although the orange and green colors in the plank are quite accurate, the sapwood is actually a shade more yellow than the white that shows up here.


plank and closeup


two sets of pics of the same set of blocks --- in the first pic, most of the upper surfaces are freshly sanded (but not the three on the right) and in the second pics all of the upper surfaces are the unsanded surfaces with patina.


plank and close up. Uniform reddish-brown color is correct.


both sides of a particularly nicely colored plank --- pics submitted by Neal Kuwabara (thanks, Neal).




quartersawn veneer with accurate color, which is much more consistently red than any of the planks I've ever seen.


web pics


plank with wet and dry sections


planks


plank and closeup


more planks from the vendor that had the overly yellow pic of my own sample board at the top of this page.


pen turning sticks


pen blanks that have been waxed and oiled


veneer


small plank pairs sold for knife handles




two pieces that were labled "Panamanian" canary. I seriously doubt the red in the second pic.


a piece labled "red streaked" canary --- I assume that is a descriptive term, not a subspecies.



canary wood from the BogusColorVendor so the colors are suspect


both sides of a plank and a closeup


plank closeups




a gun stock made from canary wood (probably a crotch area) --- wish I had a closeup of this one




bowl turned by Al Amstutz




canary highlight on a turned bowl --- left pic is raw, right one has natural (clear) stain


enlargeable pic of the whole bowl with the natural stain --- the oval to the left of the canary is also canary and the oval to the right (with the ebony veneer backing) is yew




bowls by Bryan Nelson (NelsonWood). Bryan fine-polishes his bowls with 1200 or even higher grit sandpaper while they are spinning at high speed on the lathe and then finishes them there with a friction polish of his own devising, thus achieving a shine and color vibrancy that is beautiful to behold. The first of these is 4" across, the second 10", and the third 5". These are all exceptionally nice pieces of canary but the middle one is particularly striking.