Comment by sfink
> It's light but dense,
What does that mean? It's tough enough that you can make it thinner? It dries out more fully? Or does "dense" refer to something other than density, like tightness of the grain?
> It's light but dense,
What does that mean? It's tough enough that you can make it thinner? It dries out more fully? Or does "dense" refer to something other than density, like tightness of the grain?
It's indeed the tightness of the grain, but also volumetric density (975 kg/m³) is higher than oak or spruce. What I mean with light is, indeed you can make very thin utensils and they won't break, bemd etc so at the end the product is lighter than the obe made with a softer/less dense wood.
Boxwood was for centuries the choice of wind instrument makers because of its stability and hardness, which made it possible to create thinner more practical instruments (clarinets, flute etc). till humans discovered granadillo wood, which is as dense as boxwood but much more humidity and temperature stable.