Know Your Wood: Tali

Tali

Been there, done that.

Common trade names: Tali

Genus: Erythophleum suaveolens

Janka Hardness (pounds-force): 2920

Description: Tali has a rich, warm hue across the red and brown color spectrum. It's very hard, grain typically tight, but may be irregular. Tali is a favorite of tropical hardwood enthusiasts virtually everywhere cricket is played. I've been watching lots of cricket lately. I'm hoping for a trickle-down effect relating to increased Tali demand. This is, after all, America.

Location: Tropical Africa, specifically Cameroon, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, Zaire, Zambia.

Common Aliases: Fillaea suaveolens, A-kon, Buirame, Etsa, Tsa, and a host of many others in several languages.

Performance: It’s quite stable, and for a tropical hardwood, it glues well. Painting and staining are a little more relatively difficult with Tali than with some other tropical hardwoods. Painting isn’t something one should be doing with Tali in the first place. Can be sawn, planed, or turned with similar ease to its American tropical counterparts.

Acclimation: Please remember, Tali came from a continent across the ocean, and the tree it became likely grew up in a little different climate than the one in which you live.

If the Ukranians come after me for using this picture, I suppose it will lead to an interesting story, but they aren't getting any money out of me right this moment.

Common Uses: Tali is much more common as an outdoor solution in Europe than America due to the proximity to the source of the end user. We are still able to bring you this wonderful African beauty at an affordable price. Much like any other tropical hardwoods, it thrives in outdoor applications, as is highly insect repellent. It is also among the least likely of woods to suffer a bout with mold or mildew.

From: Thewoodexplorer.com, Johnny W. Morlan, omoghardwood.com, apptimber.com

Common Name(s): Tali
Scientific Name: Erythrophleum ivorense or Erythrophleum suaveolens
Distribution: Tropical Africa
Tree Size: 100 ft (30 m) tall, 2-3 ft (.6-1.0 m) trunk diameter
Average Dried Weight: 61-67 lbs/ft3
Basic Specific Gravity: .78
Hardness: 2,920lbf (12,989 N)
Rupture Strength: 177 Mpa
Elastic Strength: 15,700 Mpa
Crushing Strength: 78 Mpa
Shrinkage: Radial: 4%, Tangential: 7%, Volumetric: 12%, T/R Ratio: 1.75

A Day Without Gribbles...

It’s a little more challenging than I’d expected to find decent and widely available and accepted standards for measuring the effectiveness of wood products.  It is relatively easy to find specific information on a subject, such as how individual species perform against each other in controlled metrics.  A comprehensive view is more difficult, due to the wide arrays of properties demonstrated by lumber opposed to other building materials, such as concrete and steel. 

Mathematical strength ratings are much more easily achieved with steel, for instance, because there is a highly predictable and consistent cellular nature of the raw materials.  Wood grows in the ground.  Funny things happen in the forest.  Branches, though they seem to follow a more specific fractal nature than previously believed, sometimes arrive in unexpected places.

The samples of specific studies can expose localized weakness in selection materials, different studies necessarily have different moisture content—in short, the number of variables found in organic materials selected from vast geographic locations makes any study’s reliability a statement of the study itself.

I didn’t start the day thinking about gribbles.

I hope I can sleep tonight without man-sized gribbles taking me on…Good thing to live in a stone house, occasionally.  These gribbles and their buddies the shipworms appear to give marine pilings serious structural issues.  TRADA (TimberResearch and Development Association) is an UK outfit that considers matters such as dumping various underused species of wood in some harsh salt water, having the sea do some kick-started sandblasting on the samples, and seeing what might happen.  The British, and some Americans, (don't buy into the plastic decking in that article.  That is a non-biodegradable problem of its own creation) have been concerned with the overexploitation of Ekki and Greenheart,  and are pursuing the consideration of a number of species for future commercial and common use.

Better managed and more responsible forestry is the counter to the rush for plastic building materials.  Emerging markets aside, the world will be required to manage its resources responsibly.  The market, over time, will see to this. 

Pretty interesting results in this nine page download by John Williams PhD, for TRADA Technology found: here.   Tali and Garapa held their own.  For those concerned with specific methodology of the study, the TRADA download is available here:   It’s an 160 page programme.