How to Identify Padauk
Spot Padauk by its sharp pale-cream-to-purple-maroon color break, fine ring-marked grain, heavy hard feel, and faint scent when cut.
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Start with color and the boundary between zones. Padauk's most obvious tell is a sharp, clean demarcation between a pale cream sapwood and a strongly colored heartwood — vivid orange-red when fresh, oxidizing to the deep red-brown and purple-maroon seen on our sample. That knife-edge transition, with no gradual blending, is characteristic and separates it from woods whose sap-to-heart change is diffuse. Fine, distinct growth-ring lines run through the grain.
Read the surface texture and figure. Padauk is fine to medium in texture with a straight to slightly interlocked grain and a soft, waxy luster; quartersawn faces may show a faint ribbon stripe. It is not strongly figured in plain stock, so a plain board with a bright-to-brownish red field and a mirror-smooth polished feel points to Padauk. If the piece has come from burl or highly figured stock (Maidou), the swirled grain is a further clue.
Judge weight and hardness. Padauk feels distinctly heavy and hard in the hand (roughly 750–850 kg/m³, Janka ~1,660 lbf) — noticeably denser and harder than mahogany or cedar, resisting a thumbnail dent. On the end grain it is diffuse-porous with medium-sized vessels, some plugged with reddish deposits, and fine light lines of parenchyma. Freshly worked Padauk often gives off a faint characteristic scent, and its dust is famously staining, tinting bench and hands orange-red.
Separating it from look-alikes is the main challenge. African Padauk (P. soyauxii) is the closest — same genus, same color behavior — and is usually told apart only by provenance and a slightly brighter, lighter tone. Bloodwood (Brosimum) is a more uniform, harder, brighter blood-red that does not brown as readily and lacks the cream/maroon two-tone break. Redheart is more even scarlet and lighter in weight. The true rosewoods (Dalbergia, e.g. cocobolo) are oilier, more variably streaked purple-black, and have a stronger, more floral/spicy scent. When color, the sharp sap/heart boundary, weight, and the staining orange dust line up, Padauk is the likely answer.
Frequently asked questions
What is the single best clue for Padauk?
The sharp, clean boundary between pale cream sapwood and a saturated orange-red-to-purple-maroon heartwood, on a wood that feels heavy and hard and whose dust stains everything orange-red. That combination is very hard to mistake.
How do I tell Padauk from Bloodwood?
Bloodwood is a more uniform, very bright blood-red that stays red and is even harder and denser, without Padauk's cream-to-maroon two-tone break. Padauk's colored zone browns and purples with age, and it shows a distinct pale sapwood beside it.
Can I tell Burma Padauk from African Padauk by eye?
Only roughly. They are different species with near-identical color and working behavior, so visual separation is unreliable; African Padauk tends to be a slightly brighter, lighter red-orange. Provenance and supplier documentation are the dependable way to know which you have.
Does Padauk smell when cut?
It often gives a faint, mild characteristic odor when freshly worked — much less pronounced than the strong floral-spicy scent of the true rosewoods, which is one way to separate Padauk from Dalbergia species.