Padauk price per board foot
Plan on about $10.50 a board foot for 4/4 stock at U.S. retail (our 2026-08 estimate — your yard gets the final word). A typical board, 6″ wide and 8′ long, will run you around $42.00.
Nothing on the rack — nothing — is as loud as fresh padauk. It arrives traffic-cone orange, an unignorable shout of a color from the forests of Central and West Africa, where drum makers have prized it for generations for its voice as much as its looks. Give it a few years of light and it settles into a deep crimson-brown, like embers banking down. Everyone who mills it wears some home; the orange dust gets everywhere and marks you as a member of the club.
Vivid orange-red, surprisingly easy to machine for its hardness. Fine orange dust stains everything — mask up and clean well.
Padauk at a glance
| Price per board foot | $10.50 (2026-08) |
| Weight, dry | 47 lb/ft³ · 3.9 lb per BF |
| Janka hardness | 1,710 lbf |
| Shrinkage, green → oven-dry | 5.0% tangential · 3.1% radial |
| Cost of 10 BF | $105.00 |
| Cost of 25 BF | $262.50 |
What common thicknesses cost
Same 6″ × 8′ board, priced by rough thickness (thicker stock often carries a small premium on top of this — figured on volume alone):
| Thickness | Board feet | Cost | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4/4 | 4.0 | $42.00 | 16 lb |
| 6/4 | 6.0 | $63.00 | 24 lb |
| 8/4 | 8.0 | $84.00 | 31 lb |
| 12/4 | 12.0 | $126.00 | 47 lb |
Will it stay flat?
Remarkably calm for something this dramatic — low shrinkage, high durability, and machining manners that woods half as hard can't manage.
The measured numbers: drying from green, padauk shrinks about 5.0% across a flatsawn board's width (tangential) and 3.1% across quartersawn (radial) — that ratio is why the two cuts behave so differently in your house.
Buying padauk without regrets
Generously sized, honestly priced, and the friendliest entry into exotic woods there is. Just place it thoughtfully: direct sun fast-forwards the orange straight to brown, so either love both colors or mind the window.
At the finishing bench
Clean the shop before you switch projects — padauk dust stains skin, clothes, and any pale wood downstream of your sander. Seal glue-ups with dewaxed shellac so oils don't smear orange into your maple. Then stand back: under a clear finish it burns like a sunset.
Sources & further reading
Prices vary with region, grade, width, and figure. Cheaper neighbor: Purpleheart ($9.75). A step up: Wenge ($15.75).