Thread: Vegetable Ivory

While on vacation I saw a product called vegetable ivory (I think the correct name is Tagua). Here'sa link to some sample designs that have been made. This isn't the website of the artist I saw but it gives some decent examples.

It is apparently hard as wood and the artist told me she uses wood working tools when carving it (ban saws, dremels, etc). I thought it would make beautiful scales but these nuts only get to be about 2 inches or so in length so there would be a line or two on each scale as individual pieces would need to be joined together.

I'm just sharing because I thought it was a unique idea. I might still do it but I haven't decided yet.

The stuff is used alot for making buttons on sport shirts and coats sold by LL beane and similar retailers.

It'd probably make for good inlay material

Originally Posted by Lancer

It'd probably make for good inlay material

Most certainly. In fact, I've read that common uses included buttons, inlay and scrimshaw.

http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.a...at=1,250,43217

That stuff looks SOOO cool. I'd love to get my hands on some of that and give it a whirl. Might be good for all sorts of things.

I am resurrecting this old thread because a friend asked me to carve some jewelry out of tagua and a few things occurred to me.
It would make an excellent choice for wedges, and one I will try to get MAX to use in my next rescale.
Also for you brush turners, if you were to slice and stack many tagua nuts, you just might get something that can be turned into a brush handle. This stuff looks amazing in person, coming from a fan of Ivory.