Bought some wood today! good choices?

all right guys, went to the local wood place. guy is real nice. has tons of stuff. I got there 4 minutes before closing and he stayed another hour for me. going to cut the wood up for me tomorrow morning and I can pick it up and post pics.

I bought Lignum Vitae, Cocobolo and Padauk. He had a buttload of the lignum vitae and I liked the green color, he said that when you cut it and work it it'll be brown, but it'll oxidize green again. said that it didn't need any finish applied and was waterproof. I picked a piece with good grain structure, I think it will look good.

the cocobolo and padauk are self-explanatory I guess. he had ebony, rosewood, the lignum vitae and cocobolo as well as snakewood in small pieces. the padauk he had in boards (as well as wenge, bocote, holly, lacewood, purpleheart, zebrawood etc.) I have a blade I got back with padauk scales I think look great so decided on that. he cut 2' of board off for me and is going to cut it for me into 1/8" as long as the other pieces.

I think prices weren't that bad, the cutting it is the bad part. he has a 20 dollar minimum which he said is plenty of time. (I guess buying more wood would lessen the overall. cost). figure about 10 bucks a piece.

padauk 2' x 5" will probably net three boards that size by 1/8"
lignum vitae about 2" x 12" and thick enough to give me maybe five of those at 1/8"
cocobolo about 1.5" x 12" maybe I'll get three or four at 1/8"?

I'll pick it up tomorrow and post pics.

I'm most curious about the lignum vitae, for some reason I can't find any razors here with scales from that. anybody got pics or other info for me?

Thanks all.

Red
PS
If after seeing it anybody wants some of this lignum vitae let me know, he's got a lot of it in all knids of sizes. I don't know much about it so got a smaller piece but he had some 3" x 12" and bigger.

I googled it and from what I read here it might be ideal for scales. At least it is water resistant. :gl:

Very dense and heavy wood. I've seen bokken made out of it for training purposes but mostly used as a warm up muscle building type tool. I've heard stories of them being used in two man forms but I guess it can explode if hit hard. If you make scales out of this don't drop as the blade will not be the only item damaged.

Those are good choices for scale wood.
But remember to wear a breathing mask if you work tropical wood. Wood dust can cause all sorts of nasty things.

my uncle has masks, the good ones, in storage and is picking up tomorrow. I learned my lesson long ago with ebony. I just through someboyd might have used the lignum vitae and was hoping even for pics.

Red

Lignum vitae is very nice to work with. Incredibly strong, oily and forgiving when it comes to dull tools and so-so technique. I don't make scales from it, it's a little boring even with figure. It does, however, make very nice brush handles.

here it is guys, for about ten bucks per species, and 20 to cut it up, I ended up with:

lignum vitae 1.5" x 12" six pieces
cocobolo 1.75" x 12" eight pieces
Padauk (man its gorgeous) 5.5" x 24" 3 pieces

I'm gonna play with the lignum first, thsi stuff is cool. it is so smooth, just with the saw cut, that it feels like plastic. too cool. remember, brown when cut but should oxidize to the green color again.

will post pics of what I do. gonna try and rough cut on the bandsaw, its of course frickin' freezing outside so might wait until tomorrow and go get propane for the heater.

L. Vitae
http://home.comcast.net/%7Ebsantagat...s/STA70003.jpg

Cocobolo
http://home.comcast.net/%7Ebsantagat...s/STA70004.jpg

Padauk
http://home.comcast.net/%7Ebsantagat...s/STA70006.jpg

The lignum vitae has some nice figure to it....Can't wait to see what you do with it.:rock:

All the Lignum I have used starts green and stays green. It is similar to olive in its oily texture. It also has a very distinct smell. I have a 24 inch turning block that I make a few things from. I haven’t gotten around to cutting some scales from it but it is on my list of to-do’s.

this was definitely green before cutting, but also not dry, it warped something vicious. I'm not going to play with it any more for a few days, I'll be lucky to get half a dozen flat enough pieces for scales. I was looking on the internet trying to find a way to accelerate the oxidation process to get it back to the green. couldn't find anything.

it does smell great though, even my wife thought so.

Red

Sent you a PM, but for the knowledge of others…


That is a problem with some woods, especially if they are still green (not kiln dried). Once cut the wood looses a lot of moisture very fast and it will warp, bow, twist and sometimes split. Get yourself a pot of boiling water. Put it in the bottom of your oven (don’t turn the oven on; you are making a steam chamber). Put the Lignum slabs on the oven racks above the water. Put the steaming water in the bottom of the oven, wood on the top shelf. It will steam and get soft. Take them out after an hour, stack them on top of each other and put a bunch of rubber bands around them, tightly. Let it dry on the kitchen countertop for a day or two and take the rubber bands off. You can also put it between a couple of 2x4’s and a couple of clamps if you have them.

The goal is to steam the wood soft, then clamp them between a couple of flat things and let them slowly dry. Rubber banding them together usually works or put them on the table, put a cookie sheet on top and a few phone books/bricks/or anything else heave on top. They should straighten out. That is how you bend wood, steam box it to heat and soften it, bend it to shape, clamp it and let it dry.

The only time I had it go brown was when the bandsaw blade was getting dull and the wood got hot. It basically scorched and discolored. That has to be sanded off, but that is based on very limited use of Lignum, so it may in fact change colors. But, when I turn it on the lathe it is green from start to finish.

Before flyrods started being made from bamboo they where often made from lignum (greenwood). Can't say much about the wood itself, but obviously it was thought a good choice for use in wet environments.

Ed M.