The Sensuous Gadgeteer
(Page 6 of 11)
September/October 1973
By the Mother Earth News editors
TROPICAL WOODS
RELATED CONTENT
ROSEWOOD—Beautiful brown-and-tan striped wood. Most commonly seen in the USA as the handles of stainless steel kitchen knives. Popular as a veneer on tables in modern Scandinavin furniture, rosewood is soft but beautiful, and it would make good carvings.
TEAK—From India. "Elephants a-pilin' teak" "Road to Mandalay" by R. Kipling. Teak is used for the decks of ships. Teak takes up minerals into the wood, probably as a defense against chewing insects, and the wood will strike fire against your power saw, and dull it like a butter knife before long. Teak is a pleasure to carve because the fibers stand up to the blade and allow themselves to be cut one at a time. Teak is so oily that its sawdust can be packed into little clods, and the greasiness gives it the water repellency to serve not only as a ship's deck, but as a jam spoon or butter knife. After carving and sanding teak, oil it with the oil from your face. Teak ranges in color from tan-and-black stripes to solid honey. Some pieces are more close-grained than others, and the close-grained pieces are the most water repellent.
MAHOGANY—Mahogany is soft but water resistant and is used in ship building. Mahogany has characteristic rows of white spots running perpendicular to the grain, and these make the wood look almost like skin. Mahogany can be either white or red. The white is used for Japanese motorcycle crates, but only about one percent of that is strong enough for carving.
EBONY—The wood of clarinets. The ebony log is black on the inside and yellow on the outside, and the black wood is harder. The wood is so dense and heavy that the tree must have grown under terrific stress, and it must be cut and carved gradually, over a period of weeks, to give it time to relax. It needs to be oiled. Otherwise it will crack. Ebony is tough and will take wear and use, but it is slightly brittle and may crack if shocked. Like teak, ebony takes up minerals into the wood, and a freshly cut sliver of ebony sparkles in the grooves of the grain. Ebony sawdust violently attacks the eyes and nose. Ebony brings $3.85 a pound in specialty lumber houses.
LIGNUM VITAE—The Lifeline Tree, the hardest wood in the world. It is fibrous and the fibers can be red, green, yellow, black and brown. Lignum vitae sawdust is green. Apparently as a defense against insects, the wood is terribly greasy, and if you touch a freshly broken piece you will get the thick, sticky grease on your hands. Until the advent of Teflon, the bearings of large ships' propellers were lignum vitae, and many a World War II heavy ship had to ride it out in a harbor waiting for the delivery of a log of lignum vitae wood. Sometimes lignum vitae is used for bushings to hold guitar pegs; the grease in the wood guarantees that the pegs will turn without sticking. The wood is so hard that it would be hell to carve, but it would make excellent buttons or belt buckles or hair pins.
For your first carving select a block of wood not bigger than 2 1/2" x 2 1/2" x 5". I recommend good pine or cheap mahogany for a first piece of work, and after that you can decide when to try walnut, teak and rosewood. Because the world's suppy of precious tropical woods such as ebony is being used up but is not being replenished, please use some scrap wood such as pine for your first efforts (and mistakes) and use precious woods only for special projects.
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