Sapele - Nomenclature
  • Common Name: Sapele
  • Scientific Name: Entandrophragma Cylindricum
  • Family: Meliaceae
​
  • Local Names:  aboudikro​​
  • Other Names: Sapelli, Sapeli
Sapele - Geography
  • Distribution: West Tropical Africa
  • Countries: Cameroon, Gabon, Congo
  • Habitat: Evergreen and deciduous forests, moist areas, preferring deep, humid soils
  • General: Large, discontinuous patches centered on the equatorial belt and between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, Tropical and Subtropical Moist Forests (TSMF) are characterized by low variability in annual temperature and high levels of rainfall (>200 centimeter annually). Forest composition is dominated by semi-evergreen and evergreen deciduous tree species.​
Local West Africa Tree Mythos: Every big tree has a spirit. Some trees house many spirits. Whether a tree is a spirit or is inhabited by a spirit is not an easy question. The people will say: The tree has a spirit, or: in the tree there is a spirit. The spirit has a voice which the careful listener can hear and even understand if he knows the language of the spirits. This voice has to be preserved carefully by the drum maker. The boat-maker too, wants to keep the spirit of the tree in the wood so that it will protect the boatman against drowning in the treacherous rivers, when the tree has become a boat. The appearance changes, the spirit remains. Together in a forest, the trees have a collective spirit, powerful enough to be revered as a god. In Honor of this majestic tree, Akashic Grove retains that spirit of the jungle in each of its unique pieces, offering the spirit a continued existence within this new form as your furniture centerpiece. 
Sapele - Characteristics 
  • Tree Size:  100-150 ft (30-45 m) tall
  • Trunk Diameter:  3-5 ft (1-1.5 m) trunk diameter
  • Color: Heartwood is a golden to dark reddish brown. Color tends to darken with age. Besides the common ribbon pattern seen on quartersawn boards, Sapele is also known for a wide variety of  other figured grain patterns, such as: pommele, quilted, mottled, wavy, beeswing, and fiddleback.
Picture
Sanded
Picture
Sealed
​The commercially important wood is reminiscent of mahogany, a member of the same family, with a distinctive figure, typically applied where figure is important. It has a density of 640 kg/m3. Demand for sapele, often marketed as "African mahogany," has increased sharply as a mahogany substitute in recent years due to genuine mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla) becoming a CITES Appendix II listed species.

Among its more exotic uses is that in musical instruments. It is used for the back and sides of acoustic guitar bodies, as well as the tops of electric guitar bodies. It is also used in manufacturing the neck piece of ukuleles and 26- and 36-string harps. In the late 90s, it started to be used as a board for Basque percussion instruments txalaparta. Sapele internal doors (normally a thin veneer of the wood on a cardboard honeycomb inner structure) were very popular in the United Kingdom during the 1980s and 1990s, although uncommon now.

Akashic Grove can also accommodate Live Edge CUSTOM orders to suit any size or application.
Contact us for details