African Blackwood

Dalbergia melanoxylon

The heartwood is purplish to brownish-black with dark gray streaks giving an overall impression of being black. Lustrous with an attractive inner chatoyance. Very hard, heavy, close-grained, and virtually free from pores. Its stability and lovely tonal qualities make it an excellent instrument wood.

Due to CITES regulations, we can only ship this species to customers in the United States.

These African Blackwood billets are cut from logs in Africa in 2023. To prevent cracking while in transit to the US, they were completely dipped in hot paraffin wax before being palletized and shipped.
Since they cannot season fully encased in wax, we remove the wax and apply several coats of clear shellac. This seals the wood and protects it from spikes in temperature or drops in humidity but has some porosity which allows the wood to dry and season. We recommend you keep it wrapped in the shrink wrap we applied before shipping. It is best stored in a cool climate (65-70° F) and with relative humidity around 35%.
When you are milling this wood, keep watch and if it starts developing small air checks, put a coat of shellac or paste wax on it. These large, mostly clear boards are incredibly rare in African Blackwood so please take pains to prevent degradation.

While these pieces have some grain aberrations (such as knot shadows, burl clusters, slight run out, or grain that isn’t straight) that we thought precluded it from being instrument quality, they are still absolutely gorgeous pieces of wood. There is a close up photo of one section of this billet where you can see some of the interesting grain features.

Item Number: W42646