What Is The Hardest Hardwood

An ironwood tree that is native to australia this wood comes from a species of tree occurring across most of eastern and southern australia.

What is the hardest hardwood. And while this example lists just some of the most popular hardwood species there are hundreds of varieties representing the north american hardwood population. Species of hard soft wood. Hard sugar maple. The janka hardness scale ranks wood for density and is a reliable indicator of floor durability in regard to hardness and denting.

Janka rating soft to hard lbf balsa. Solid wood flooring as the name suggests is made of solid wood throughout its thickness. The hardest commercially available hardwood is hickory and it is five times harder than aspen one of the soft hardwoods. Known as the hardest wood in the world this particular type has a janka hardness of 5 060 lbf.

Brazilian cherry a more exotic species ranks 2 350. Red oak one of the most common hardwood flooring species ranks 1 290. Therefore more widely available and hardwearing are hickory and maple flooring. The higher the rating the more resistant the floor is to dents scratches and wear.

Generally speaking the hardest wood for flooring is ipe or lapacho. Brazilian walnut ipe 3 684. The scale used in the table is pounds force. It usually made of a hardwood species such as oak maple or walnut and its major advantage is that it can be sanded and refinished many times over the course of its lifespan.

However this is very hard to find due to its rarity. While the complete janka hardness listings will reveal that there are some fairly hard softwoods and some relatively soft hardwoods in the species most commonly used in flooring the identifiers hold true. The janka test measures the amount of force required to embed a 0 444 steel ball into the wood to half of its diameter. Wood hardness chart species alphabetical hardness species by hardness hardness mahogany honduran 800 padauk 1725 mahogany santos 2200 tabaccowood 1750 maple hard north american 1450 rosewood bolivian 1780 maple ivory 1500 bamboo carbonized 1800 maple soft 999 hickory 1820 merbau 1925 pecan 1820 mesquite 2345 yellowheart 1820.

Brazilian tiger mahogany 3 840. Woods with a higher rating are harder than woods with a lower rating. Leadwood 3 570 lb f brown ebony 3 590 lb f ipe 3 510 lbf mopane 3 390 lbf burmese blackwood 3 350 lbf kingwood 3 340 lbf. Aptly named wood in the schinopsis genus is among the heaviest and hardest in the world.

The most durable flooring woods will be hardwoods such as oak walnut ebony maple ash and pecan.