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SNAKEWOOD
Piratinera guianensis
Piratinera guianensis (syn. Brosimum guianensis) of the family Moraceae
Snakewood comes from a smallish, relatively rare tree found in the forests of Central and South America and is reportedly is somewhat brittle and difficult to work, but worth the effort. It is very rare in general and fully figured pieces are even more rare and very expensive. It is also available in unfigured form, usually at a greatly reduced price. There is generally a problem with pith checking (that is, the center of the logs tend to have long voids and splits after drying). Typically only 25% of a log will have the famous snakeskin figure and this, combined with the frequent pith checks make it a popluar wood for vendors to sell in log form by the pound because that way they put the onus on the buyer of finding out the typically bad news about what's inside the log. The color, which can be quite bright on first exposure, and have a lot of red, darkens with age to a solid brown.
My samples are mostly unfigured, or at best are figured only on a part of each. Some wood snobs say that unfigured snakewood is useless but they are very wrong --- it is a very hard, dense, wood that turns VERY nicely and polishes to a VERY high gloss (glass-like) and does not suffer from the brittleness of the figured sections.
Both figured and unfigured sections are prone to extremely thin cracks that sometimes cannot be seen until after the wood is fully worked and a finish is applied.
Called "snakewood" because of the fairly obvious snake-skin look of the figured portions. In England it's called "letterwood" because the figure was interpreted as looking somewhat like hieroglyphics.
my samples
a bunch of really small/thin pieces that came in a mixed lot; the bottom ones are about 1/16th thick and the top ones are massively flawed behind the top surface. None are useable for anything but at least now I have a first-hand pic of this wood --- color is very accurate and as you can see, it has none of the red or orange that most pics show, although I cannot say with authority that snakewood never has any of those colors.
a closer pic of a couple of the pieces from the group above --- these two have been sanded a little more but are still pretty rough.
plank and closeup --- the upper portion has the classic snakeskin figure and the rest does not.
plank and closeup --- this one has only a hint of the snakeskin figure
a pair of small planks, several more pics of which are shown directly below
plank and face grain closeup
side grain and end grain closeups of the piece directly above
the other plank
side grain and end grain closeups of the piece directly above --- the end grain pic is too red
web pics
log halves --- the first one is 4 feet long and the top one in the 2nd pic is also 4 feet long
more log halves. This wood is frequently sold as log halves because it is so frequently full of flaws --- buying one of these logs is like buying a pig in a poke, and it usually DOES turn out to be a cat.
small pics of big planks --- the enlargements show several common pith flaws clearly
planks
unfigured planks
turning stock
turning sticks
pen blanks
knife handle pairs
knife handle pairs
knife handle pairs
knife handle pairs
knife handle blank and pool cue blank
turning billet that almost certainly is waxed or oiled
listed as veneer but I've never seen this wood offered for sale as a veneer and it is my understanding that it is too brittle to make a good veneer
veneer pic sent by Neal Kuwabara who wanted to see if I agreed it was snakewood, which I do. The cracks seem to confirm what I've heard about snakewood being too brittle to make a good veneer