Latin Name: Dalbergia melanoxylon
A small tree growing to heights of 30 feet and generally diameters of less than one foot. Blackwood grows throughout East and Central Africa
Color: Heartwood is purplish-brown with black streaks. Sapwood is white.
Properties:extremely dense and hard. Density 75lb/ft3. Very fine even grain, oily, very stable.
Uses: The wood of choice for fine quality woodwind instruments such as oboes, clarinets and bagpipes.

African Blackwood is the most desirable wood for wind instruments. When air is caused to vibrate in the bore of an instrument, the less the walls of the bore absorb the sound waves inside it, the brighter and louder the sound. Blackwood, with its oil impregnated dense grain, is ideally suited for this. Further it is fine grained enough to machine like cast iron (its density is roughly equivalent) so that accurate bores and correctly placed and sized tone holes can be made. It is not subject to seasonal changes, which is critical in a musical instrument.
Working with Blackwood can be tricky because when heated by the machining process, the oil tends to glue the sawdust together in lumps on the tool, so that drills clog and so forth. When cut, Blackwood gives off a strong acrid smell like burning coffee. Like most tropical hardwoods it can provoke allergic reactions in some people.
Because of its properties, Blackwood does not need to be finished with other surface treatments but can be polished on a dry buffing wheel to a high gloss. With exposure to air the brown color fades to a uniform black.
Unfortunately, due to Blackwood's small initial size and desirability, it is becoming alarmingly scarce. This is also partially due to the high level of waste involved in the primitive African harvesting process. Many small instrument makers, for reasons of conscience as well as supply, have opted for African Ebony as a substitute for Blackwood. Ebony has roughly similar properties. There are still a few companies who direct the harvesting of Blackwood by the traditional methods. It would be a great boon to the longevity of the supply if some ecologically minded person or company would import some modern portable band saw mills into the areas where Blackwood is cut.

Bill Thomas