Geographic Distribution:
The wood commonly known by wood workers as Pyinma is known to botanists and other scientists as Lagerstroemia spp. This designation indicates that more than one species may be harvested and sold as Pyinma. For those with some botanical knowledge, Lagerstroemia may be familiar as the genus of the flowering ornamental tree Crepe Myrtle, technically Lagerstroemia indica. The wood sold as Pyinma is not from Crepe Myrtle, a tree that rarely, if ever, reaches timber dimensions.
Lagerstroemia spp. is native to Southeast Asia.
For the sake of simplicity and common understanding I will refer to Lagerstroemia spp. from here forward using the common name Pyinma.
General Characteristics:
The heartwood of Pyinma is typically golden to reddish brown, with paler yellow/gray sapwood. As is almost always the case with colored tropical woods, the color tends to darken with age upon exposure to light. Pyinma commonly features a curly grain figure, more pronounced in some examples than in others, but very commonly present to some degree.
Pyinma Large Interior
The grain may be straight but as noted above wavy and interlocked grain figure is common in Pyinma.
The texture is moderately coarse and uneven but Pyinma does show a good natural luster when finely prepared.
Pyinma is rated as moderately durable in its resistance to rot with an intermediate resistance to insect attacks.
Working Characteristics:
Pyinma is considered to be generally easy to work with, although as is the case with any wood, pieces with curly grain will be more difficult to machine or plane without tearout. There are simple to follow guidelines to help prevent this problem.
Fortunately, Pyinma does not have the same blunting effect on cutters that a true Satinwood would exhibit.
Pyinma Small Interior
Pyinma is reported to turn, glue, and finish well, taking a high luster when properly surfaced and finished.
Pyinma does not have a distinct odor when cut.
Pricing and Availability:
Pyinma prices are generally moderate for an imported wood. Pieces exhibiting an exceptional amount of figure may be more expensive, but Pyinma is generally priced very reasonably, even for figured wood.
In this blog, I almost always recommend several vendors with whom I have done considerable business and in whom I have great confidence. These vendors are: West Penn Hardwoods, Bell Forest Products, NC Wood, WoodTurningz, Amazon Exotic Hardwoods, Griffin Exotic Wood, Exotic Woods USA, Got Wood?, and Wood Turning Blanks 4U.
At this time, I am only able to source Pyinma in pen blank sizes. I don’t recall which vendor sold me the two, albeit small, bowl blank sizes that I had but I am not able to find more.
Woodfinder is an excellent website that is dedicated to advertising wood dealers. In your search for Pyinma this can be an invaluable resource provided you use multiple search terms to capture all the possible listings. I can’t speak to the quality of any of the listed dealers, but Woodfinder does have the advantage of allowing searches to be performed based on location which might allow an interested buyer to visit a listed wood dealer in person to hand pick pieces at a comfortable price.
A significant problem with using Woodfinder is that many vendors are listed for woods that, upon further investigation, they do not offer. I don’t know if perhaps once they did and they didn’t update their listings or if some vendors use a standardized list of woods that include most everything conceivable with the idea that once you land on their page you will find something you want to buy even if you didn’t know it beforehand. It happens to me all the time!
Common Uses:
Common uses of Pyinma include, but are not limited to: furniture, boatbuilding, general utility work (within its native range), turned objects, and other small specialty items.
Sustainability:
Chechen is not listed as being endangered by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) Appendices nor is it listed on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List.