suggestion needed

[Zed]

hello friends,

I have some casurina i'm gunna make into a blanket box for Jane. I want to have the five facing sides made from casurina and the bottom from camphor laurel both to save using casurina where it wont show and also for the bug detering qualities of CL...

What I plan to do is make 4 legs in a curved taper (curve on outside 2 edges and flat on the inside so I can rout a groove for the panels); thick at top down to thin at bottom... and make a ful length mortice hidden mortice & tenon in the laminated panel and leg section.

I love the look of casurina (I think what i've got is the western rose sheoak /casurina) - absolutely beautiful to look at if shined up to a high polish and as hard as Rockwell C 62!!! ...

since its a nice soft red colour with all those lovely swirly lines in it I want to offset the red with a dark (almost black) timber for the legs and edging on the top of the box lid. Ideally I'd like ebony but i havnt priced it yet and im sure its pretty expensive. Anagote timbers price it at $150 per superfoot (12x12x1) so its gunna cost a packet....

my question is - any suggestions on a nice dark timber ???

cheers

[echnidna]

jarrah or redgum should give a nice contrast

[Bob Willson]

I think that I would tend to use a straight grained, pretty uninteresting type of timber for the legs and give them a good long soak in a Walnut (or even black) dye bath.

[VEEBULL]

Zed , I bought a stick of ebony about 2 years ago , 60x60x1200 Lg , $200.00 .

Mate of mine did a nice box with legs of Tulip Plum aka Burdekin Plum , straight grained and is usually pretty dark .You might also consider Q WALNUT .

VEEBULL.

[JB]

Gidgee is the nearest to black Aus timber I know of. Hard as nails but finishes beautifully.

Queensland walnut is one of the darkest of the traditional furniture timbers, at least the old stuff is. More recently milled timber, if it's available, may be lighter in colour. It is also usually sold with sapwood attached, so a bit of wastage there for your project. However the dark sections might suit, and you could cheat a little by dying/staining to speed the ageing/darkening process.

[AlexS]

How about some nice dark jarrah? reckon it would look preety good with the casuarina.

[ozwinner]

What about some Banana wood??


Al :D

[Cliff Rogers]

What about some Banana wood??


Al :D
That'd be 'Vine' if you had 'handy' feet. :rolleyes:

[PAH1]

YOu could use jarrah or another high tannin timber and treat it with ebonising solution aka steel wool in vinegar. On the right timber this goes truly blak without the expense of going to ebony.

[glock40sw]

VEEBULL....do you Full-bore?

[VEEBULL]

Yes Glock , I do , with the Brisbane Mariners Rifle Club .I guess ' veebull' gave it away hey ??

Mike ( veebull)

[Zed]

I ended up getting some black heart sasafras from Trend Timbers. very nice. they were very helpful and courtious out there. even gave me a discount although it was a tad expensive... oh well Jane is worth it!