{"id":2211,"date":"2017-02-26T04:00:45","date_gmt":"2017-02-26T09:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.woodturningpens.com\/?p=2211"},"modified":"2017-01-18T17:30:09","modified_gmt":"2017-01-18T22:30:09","slug":"kingwood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.woodturningpens.com\/kingwood\/","title":{"rendered":"Kingwood"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
The wood most commonly known as Kingwood is known to botanists and other scientists as Dalbergia cearensis<\/em>. As those readers who are familiar with my series of articles about wood species are likely to recognize, so called “kingwood” is true rosewood of the Dalbergia<\/em> genus, and thus, is highly desired, increasingly rare, and accordingly expensive.<\/p>\n D. cearensis<\/em> is native to the “horn” of northeastern Brazil, found only in the states of Bahia, Ceará, Paraíba, Pernambuco, and Piauí. The D. cearensis<\/em> tree is small and often features crooked trunks, so large sizes of lumber are quite rare.<\/p>\n Of course we wouldn’t be talking about exotic hardwoods if there wasn’t a potential complication to discuss, and in this case that complication is Dalbergia congestiflora<\/em>. D. congestiflora<\/em> is native to the small Mexican state of Morelos, a lush green area to the immediate south of Mexico City. The high fertility of the soil in Morelos is due, in part, to rich volcanic activity in the past, yielding the same types of soil found in other volcanic locales such as Hawai’i.<\/p>\n D. congestiflora<\/em>, also true Dalbergia<\/em> genus rosewood, is visually practically identical to D. cearensis<\/em>. Therefore, some exotic wood dealers will sell both materials interchangeably as “Kingwood” while other dealers will specify D. congestiflora<\/em> as “Mexican Kingwood” or “Camatillo” while reserving plain “Kingwood” for D. cearensis<\/em>. Still other dealers may further qualify D. cearensis<\/em> as “Brazilian Kingwood.”<\/p>\n In the end, given the similarity between the two species in terms of appearance, fragrance, and workability, it probably doesn’t matter a great deal which wood is which, unless, like me, you just care about that sort of thing. In this case, I was working with the Brazilian variety although I do have the Mexican version in my shop stocks as well.<\/p>\n And, for the sake of simplicity, from this point forward I will be referring to D. cearensis<\/em> simply as Kingwood.<\/p>\n