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| Home Painting Skills and Basics Paperhanging Home Decorating Interior Decorating Wood Identification |
Australian BlackwoodThe several hundred species of 
Acacia produce woods with a wide range of colour, weight and appearance.One of the most attractive is Australian blackwood, which comes from a tree of SE Australia, particularly important in Tasmania, where it produces logs up to I m in diameter from trees 30m in height. It is also planted outside Australia, notably in South Africa, where it supplements the depleted stocks of native hardwoods. Though called blackwood, it is a golden to chocolate brown with darker markings. The grain is generally fairly straight, but is sometimes wavy, when it gives a cross-banded or fiddle-back figure which, combined with a high natural lustre, results in a very decorative appearance; the texture is medium, but even. The wood is moderately heavy. A timber with good properties, it dries without trouble and saws easily. It is a strong wood, comparing favourably with beech. It machines to an excellent finish, takes a high polish, and bends well after steaming. Blackwood is one of Australia's most" attractive woods, even plain timber having a fine appearance. It is used mainly for decorative effect for panelling, interior joinery in prestige buildings and for furniture, but it is also an important wood for bent work, e.g. coachwork and boat-building. Logs, especially those with a wavy grain, are often sliced and, outside the countries where it is grown, it is seen mainly as veneer. Extract from 'The International book of WOOD' curtesy Michael Beazley Publishers Limited 1979. |
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