Wood Species
Black Knight Artisans uses domestic wood from Wisconsin. Choose from Oak, Walnut, Silver Maple and Cherry.
If you are more about the exotic, then we have several imported exotic woods available as well.
Common Wood Species
Black Knight Artisans has a good variety of common wood species available.
Cedar
Aromatic red cedar has very distinct scent and odor. The color of the heartwood is reddish to violent-brown with the sapwood being a pale yellow. The grain is straight with knots present throughout the wood. Texture of the cedar is very even and fine.
Cherry
The heartwood of cherry varies from rich red to reddish-brown and will darken with age and on exposure to light. In contrast, the sapwood is creamy white. The wood has a fine uniform, straight grain, satiny, smooth texture, and may naturally contain brown pith flecks and small gum pockets.
Hard Maple
The sapwood is creamy white with a slight reddish brown tinge and the heartwood varies from light to dark reddish-brown. The amount of darker brown heartwood can vary significantly according to growing region. Both sapwood and heartwood can contain pith fleck. The wood has a close, fine, uniform texture and is generally straight-grained, but it can also occur as "curly," "fiddleback," and "birds-eye" figure.
Walnut
The sapwood of walnut is creamy white, while the heartwood is light brown to dark chocolate brown, occasionally with a purplish cast and darker streaks. The wood develops a rich patina that grows more lustrous with age. Walnut is usually supplied steamed, to darken sapwood. The wood is generally straight-grained, but sometimes with wavy or curly grain that produces an attractive and decorative figure. This species produces a greater variety of figure types than any other.
White Oak
The sapwood is light-colored and the heartwood is light to dark brown. White oak is mostly straight-grained with a medium to coarse texture, with longer rays than red oak. White oak therefore has more figure.
Exotic Wood Species
These species are not always available. Please contact us if you are interested in using one of these species for your project.
Padauck
Padauk is an African wood with an intense orange color, sometimes with almost black or yellowish streaks creating dramatic grain patterns. You can save the dust and shavings and use them as a colorant in your next epoxy casting ;). Great wood for contrasting inlays. Clients have made everything from wood ipad cases, to turned wine stoppers.
Its grain is open and relatively coarse , so although padauk would be considered a hardwood, it is relatively straight forward to cut and sand. Its Janka rating is around 1950 in comparison to purplehearts’ rating of 2500 … so that should give you a bit of an idea of its comparative density. Finishing requires a little more work to seal the open pores if you are looking for that glass-like finish.
*Currently limited on stock.
Purpleheart
Purpleheart is probably the most available and known “exotic wood” from South America. Its a big, fat tree and produces large, wide planks. Its claim to fame is its dramatic, intense purple color.
Is purple heart a hardwood or a softwood? Well if you are asking me that question from a woodworkers’ perspective …. purpleheart is definitely a hardwood. Its grain is very tight and typically straight. Without sharp tools it will burn…. but it turns beautifully! …of course with sharp chisels lol Sanding is a process that requires patience. Now having said all that , its worth the effort especially if you are incorporating it into a small project, a wood box, a wood cutting board or a feature strip in your wood countertop. The color is intense, makes a great contrast to more traditional Canadian woods.
Purpleheart is one of the most available and cost effective exotic woods. Interesting note is that it is pretty rot resistant and seen used in exterior stairs in South America
*Currently limited on stock.
Zebrawood (accent only)
Zebrawood is one VERY dramatically patterned wood from West Africa. The dark brown striations compete with the pale beige background to create a well-named zebra pattern … everything you would think about, visualizing its animal name-sake. This exciting pattern comes out in cross grain slices as well, so knife scales and cutting boards are often seen to capitalize on these interesting patterns. It can be bought as “quarter-sawn” (very straight grain) or regular sawn (lot of swirls). We typically carry the later, as I find in more exciting, and not quite as expensive.
The wood has an endless interlocking grain that makes it difficult to plane, thus we carry a wider selection of wood that has been pre-sanded to make working with zebrawood a little easier and more enjoyable. Zebrawood lumber is easy to cut. If you look at the tech tables , it does have a pretty high co-efficient of shrinkage, so important to work with dry wood … finding occasional fissures in the wood is not unusual.
*We currently have very limited amounts of zebrawood in stock. This means that we will use it for accents and embellishment at this time.