Thread: working with lychee wood

I hadn't heard of lychee wood before reading your post but a search to find some general info on it came up with an old thread on this forum. Apparently it is very prone to cracking. If the piece you have is well dried then it probably won'crack much more. However, if it is not well dried then it may well crack more even if you put resin into the existing cracks. In this case it may be better to coat it with something to slow the drying and leave it for another year or two before making anything from it.

The old thread is here:
Lychee wood

Originally Posted by labr@

I hadn't heard of lychee wood before reading your post but a search to find some general info on it came up with an old thread on this forum. Apparently it is very prone to cracking. If the piece you have is well dried then it probably won'crack much more. However, if it is not well dried then it may well crack more even if you put resin into the existing cracks. In this case it may be better to coat it with something to slow the drying and leave it for another year or two before making anything from it.

Thanks so much for replying! It is kiln dried but the cracks do bother me. I believe the earlier post you mention is what drew me to this group I've had another reply suggesting I coat the board 4-5 times with a wax-free shellac and let it dry for at least a couple of days before doing anything else to the wood. Hoping this will soak in and help stabilize it.

After gathering advice from various sources, I proceeded with the lychee wood to make a charcuterie board. Using a thin, alcohol-based shellac, I gave the board numerous coats over a morning, letting it soak into the cracks, then let it cure for 48hrs. I then built a mold for the 28" long slab. Sanded the resin-wood edge lightly then poured the resin in two layers (1 thin layer of Copper Penny from Black Diamond, a thicker layer of clear with gold flecks). After I de-molded the board, I sanded everything to 320, then filled all the little cracks I exposed with CA glue. There were lots. I then sanded the resin to 800 followed by Acks paste then polish. Here are a few photos of the process. Thanks for the input! Curly lychee front top view jpeg.jpgCurly lychee bare board jpeg.jpgCurly lychee end angle jpeg.jpgcurly lychee mold jpeg.jpg

Thanks for posting the end result, looks fantastic.

Thank you!