purpleheart

Are you referring to turning green jatoba, or dried? I'm turning the platter out of 4/4 stock, quite dry. Can I expect it to warp later? This is disappointing.

Jeff

SNIP >>>

============== Jeff, That plain wood is a good excuse for experimenting with stains, dyes, paints lacquers, etc.

Ken Moon Webberville, TX.

In an issue of AAW last year, there was an article about using muriatic acid to change the color of Purpleheart to a cranberry color. I have a customer that followed the instructions and showed me the results. I thought that it was quite striking! It was a procedure very similar to fuming White Oak. A small enclosed tent was fabricated using clear poly and the Purpleheart object(in this case a turned bowl) was placed in this enclosed space resting on an open framework stand. A small dish of muriatic acid was placed underneath the open frame work that held the bowl and the "tent was sealed" and left overnight. In the morning, it was cranberry colored! Simple and effective seemed to me. Not sure of the issue, but someone might know and post it for those that have an interest.

One persons' firewood is another persons exotic.

That's true of a darn sight more than just woodturning!

I think it was Bill Rubenstein who mentioned that purpleheart is a generic term for a variety of related trees? Does anyone know if all these species have the same turning characteristics or are some species "better" than others? I've been tempted to try some purpleheart in segmented work but with the prices here I'd like to know a bit more before discovering how good it is as firewood.

- Andy

As far as I know there is only one species of Purpleheart (Peltogyne spp.) Comes from South and Central America.

It burns well.

I've never seen purpleheart in Central America -- I've been at saw mills in Guatemala, Belize and southern Mexico (yeah, I know, not Central America) on multiple trips. Maybe it is there but not in commercial quantities.

One issue -- even if P/H were a single species, the growing conditions can make a big difference in what you get. Sandy soil == silica and lots of sharpening for instance.

BTW, in South America P/H is the wood of choice for truck beds. It is cheap, hard and lasts a long time and they don't care what color it is.

Bill

Curly Woods wrote:

Always puzzled me how the silicon in sand - insoluble and bound as it is to one of the most reactive of atoms - Oxygen, could have any effect on what was growing in it. As a gardener specializing in bindweed and round rock, I find no difference in crunch between broccoli grown in sand and in clay. Anecdotal as that may be, I think it must be something else involving leaching of other silica-bearing compounds.

Up here in the rust belt it's Pressure-Treated all the way for trucks whose beds have fallen away due to corrosion.

Am told by my lumber guy that purpleheart is a nuisance wood where it grows wild and free, hence the use for truck beds, floors, posts, pretty much anything where you would need a sturdy, long-wearing wood.