Thread: Experience with Turpentine for hand tools

Turps comes in two types: the type that's hard, and the type that's hard and laden with silica to the point where it can be impossible to keep an edge up to it. You might also have an issue with case hardening depending on the mill of origin, it can be difficult to dry and some mills just cut oversize, kiln and dress out the collapse rather then reconditioning. If it hasn't been reconditioned that can make a tight grained, sometimes interlocking, timber harder again.

good to mill when green though if you don't have a silica problem. If the timber you have is carrying a lot of silica well - good luck with it, you're about to become expert in sharpening blades.

One of Australia's most under rated timbers IMHO, but not generally thought of as a woodworking species because of the above. They don't call it Red Luster for no reason.

I hand planed the tops on these cabinets, from memory I had best results going across the grain.
with some oil wiped on.jpgoverall isometric view.jpg

I was told it was turpentine from the Turkey beach area (south of here), not sure whether this area produces trees typically with high silica content or not but I found it to be ok to machine as long as cutters were sharp, it holds a nice crisp edge and a nice dark red colour.
By the look of the boards when I got them there was some movement during drying (air only at a guess) but otherwise ok




Pete