--Hi, gang. I'm taking a breather from metalworking for a spell in order to finish a project I dropped a while back. I've been using a metal lathe to turn little widgets out of various materials, but I reeeeally like Purpleheart for this thing. I've put up a page of my progress, or lack thereof. I'm sure I'm doing several things wrong and I'd appreciate any useful input the sages may care to convey. --Current problems, aside from a dreadful setup, include getting a good finish and preserving it in some way. Direct link: C:\html\wbfeb06.htm TIA,
, in case anybody sees this and not the other one. You might want to invest in perhaps an inexpensive set of Harbor Freight HSS woodturning tools, if you're going to be doing much of this. Save yourself the frustration of trying to do stuff with an inadequate edge and wrecking good wood.
That aside, and assuming you have gotten the shape and sanded to the surface you want, you can put about anything you want on purpleheart for a finish. The key to keeping its purple color is keeping it out of UV light, including sunlight and fluorescent lighting. Both will turn it brown, sunlight rather quickly. You could go with some UV protectant finish, like an exterior varnish, but it may help but a little. I have a purpleheart bowl I eat out of every day that is 5 years old and still a brilliant, rich purple. I believe the only finish on it is a couple of coats of ZipGard poly.
As for the connecting rod trunk guides, they look like they might possibly be bocote, but there are a number of striped woods. And bocote is more yellowish and dark brown, than chocolatey brown. There's another wood I'm thinking of, but I can't quite wrap my brain around the name of it. It'll come to me after I hit the "send" button, probably.
--Yeah I've noticed. The piece I'm holding in photo #4 sat in a dark box for a few years and it darkened even without exposure to sunlight; I'd suspect the fluorescents in my shop but for the fact that the darkening was uniform all around, so I guess there's also a natural oxidation or some such going on.
--Not familiar with this; will get some and give it a try. Thanks!
--Yeah, I found my notes. The sides are Bocote and the base is Cocobolo. I had a bunch of wood varieties that I'd bought and I just played around with them. This brings up another point: it's obvious from a casual glance that I haven't got clue one about what looks good with what. I'm thinking I should have used more contrasting colors; i.e. sort of an ebony/ivory thing. Any artistic insight in terms of rules of the road, so to speak, would also be appreciated.
If you'd like to see what purple heart looks like with natural Danish Oil and buffing, I posted 2 pictures of a nice blank that Chuck sent me that I messed up trying to make a heart out of it.. *g*
it's in alt.binaries.pictures.woodworking the title is Ping: george...
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