Trade Names:  Sapeli

Origin:  Africa

Range:  West, Central and East Africa, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, Gabon, Congo, Angola, Zaire and Uganda.

Uses:  Sliced veneer for faces, furniture, paneling, parquet flooring, doors, pianos and construction lumber. Sapeli is available in many different figure types including fiddleback, mottled, pomele, drape and the most common ribbon stripe.

Properties:  Weak pink to dark red heartwood, quickly darkening to a red brown in time.

Machining:  Sapele is easily worked with hand and machine tools despite of a certain hardness. Only irregular fibre grains make it difficult to produce smooth surfaces.

Seasoning:  Kiln seasoning is difficult because Sapele has a marked tendency to distort when dried too quickly. This is why drying must be carried out very slowly and carefully so that the lumber is not degraded.