figured · species
Quartered Ribbon Sapele Veneer
Quartered sapele showing the classic interlocked ribbon stripe that reverses in the light.
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.
Sapele — Entandrophragma cylindricum — grows with an interlocked grain, meaning successive growth layers spiral in opposite directions. Quartered, that interlock is cut through at right angles and shows as the ribbon stripe: alternating bands of light and dark that are not color at all, but the same wood reflecting light in two directions.
This is the specification point everybody misses. Because the stripe is directional, it reverses when you walk past it, and a book-match reverses it across the seam as well — so a book-matched sapele wall reads as strong alternating bands rather than as a mirror. That is either exactly the effect you want or a considerable shock. Slip-matching keeps every leaf facing the same way and the wall stays even.
Decide which of those two you are specifying before the panels are laid up, because it cannot be changed afterwards. Tell us the elevation and we will tell you what each match will actually look like on it. Available raw, two-ply, paper-backed, and pressed to panel.
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Tell us the format, the quantity and the delivery city. Or call (502) 330-5688 — Todd will tell you honestly whether the flitch will carry the job.