Lonchocarpus castilloi

Machinche

A dense, strong hardwood with bending strength that outperforms even Ipe. The trusted choice for boats, flooring, and railroad crossties across the Yucatán.

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740 Density (kg/m³)

1195 Rupture resistance (kg/cm²)

03 Native regions

>ipe bending strength

About Manchiche

Manchiche is a heavy, hard-working timber native to the Yucatán Peninsula, Belize, and Guatemala — durable and strong enough for heavy construction, railroad crossties, and flooring, yet valued in Mexico specifically for medium draft boat construction. Its heartwood runs yellowish-brown to reddish-brown, with occasional dark streaks sharply set off from the cream-to-light-brown sapwood. The grain can be straight, irregular, or interlocked with a somewhat coarse texture. It's a genuinely demanding wood to work — the interlocked and often irregular grain calls for reinforced carbide-edge tooling to get clean surfaces and edges — but the payoff is worth it: excellent response to mortising, molding, and drilling, and a high polish once a sealer's been applied. What really sets Manchiche apart is its bending strength, which exceeds that of Ipe, one of the most trusted heavy-timber species in the world.

Black Cabbage Bark
Balché
Chacté

At a glance

Origin: Belize, Guatemala, Southwest Mexico, Southeast Mexico
Category: Indoor Furniture · Outdoor Furniture · Flooring · Musical Instruments · Marine
Best for: Medium draft boats, firewood, general home use, flooring, parquet, furniture and cabinets, fine furniture, turning, pallets, packaging, musical instruments, handicrafts
Working properties: Somewhat difficult to work manually and in different machining operations due to interlocked and/or irregular grain — reinforced carbide-edge tooling recommended. Excellent response to mortising, molding, and drilling; bonds well with common white glue; pre-drilling required before nailing or screwing.

Spec sheet

Physical-mechanical properties

Laboratory values for Manchiche, referenced against the region's standard hardwood testing methodology.

Density 740 kg/m³

MOE Flex — Elastic Modulus 180,540 cm³

RLE Flex — Elastic Resistance Limit 641 kg/cm²

RR Flex — Rupture Resistance 1,195 kg/cm²

PMOE Com for — Elastic Modulus, Compression Parallel 148,370 kg/cm²

PRLE Com for — Elastic Resistance Limit, Compression Parallel 314 kg/cm²

RR Com for — Rupture Resistance 557 kg/cm²

RLE Com for — Elastic Resistance Limit, Perpendicular Compression 557 kg/cm²

RR Shear for — Rupture Resistance, Parallel Shear 557 kg/cm²

JK Lateral — Lateral Face Hardness 752 kg

JK Lateral — Transverse Face Hardness 733 kg

Where it's used

Built for the demanding jobs

01 — Furniture

Indoor & outdoor furniture

02 — Flooring

Premium hardwood flooring

03 — Musical Instruments

Tonewood & musical instruments

04 — Marine

Marine decking & boat building

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