Thread: Jacaranda

Jacaranda is fine to use, but more importantly it's not expense from what you said. So who cares what the populas think

It works well, it's cheap and so you can practice all you want

The big bonus is that if you kick a goal with it and like what you have made it'll be in a nice timber.

Keep the chip a'flyin..

Cheers


Steve

Easy to turn and fairly stable when drying. Most often bland grain but good for burning and/or added features. Mostly creamy white to light brown, although I have some from a >100 year old tree that is a beautiful dark honey colour.

I have used a little bit of it in a box, seems to be OK to me, no more no less stable than any other timber, as Dia says it's a dirty white/light tan sort of colour, can have interesting colour variation especially with some spalting in it,


Pete

These bits look pretty alright. Grain is quite subtle as mentioned and there are patches of honey and lemon flanked by pinkish hues. Should be interesting all the same, thanks for your replies

Hi Noctoadal, I'm probably one of the chair makers who have praised it. I think it makes excellent seats for Windsor style chairs - easy to carve but strong for its weight. I grab any I can get my hands on!

Although it's a bland colour, Jacaranda can have a very attractive grain pattern, depending on the log it came from. If you stained the right bits, you could pass it off as Elm - it has an identical jagged growth-ring patern.

It is one of those few woods that will dry in the round without forming large radial cracks, but I challenge those who say it's stable. It is in the upper category of responsiveness to moisture, compared with most other woods I know. But as long as you are aware that it will move when unconstrained and allow for it, it's not a killer blow. It is very well-behaved in other respects, easy to work with, glues well, etc.

I made a kitchen table top from it a few years ago, with breadboard ends. The top protrudes about 5mm fom the breadboard end in high Summer (our 'wet' period) and withdraws at least as much in the dry months, which is considerably more movement than I would expect from similar density woods. The reason I used Jacaranda was because LOML had admired a pseudo-antique (& very pricey!) Elm table but wanted a very light coloured top. The table she liked had an adzed top, which I tried to simulate by using a scrub plane, but it didn't work out as well as I'd hoped. There are too many grain reversals in my pieces, and I got too much tear-out. The boss is satisfied, it has the 'rustic' look she wanted, but it annoys me every time I look at it - some day I will sneak in & plane it smooth & flat like it was before I attempted the 'adze' finish...

Cheers,

Good sealing will help with stability problems.

I like the subtle grain patterns of Jaccaranda, reminds me somewhat of London Plane Tree.

You're both quite right.

I'm following your advice with this test-piece Artme. I've thrown a heap of oil at it and an archeological quantity of poly on all surfaces of it. I'm trying my luck at a little coffee table and will see how it goes.

And thank you Ian for your detailed post! The tear-out is really caused me a bit of grief. I held back on the planer and set it down to a cut depth of "why bother" milimetres and sharpened it to an atom, but it still would grab a big hunk of reversed grain and tear out a horrendous big gouge out of it. It's turning out to be a bit of a dark horse this timber. It carves easy (I've made a little frog that will sit on the natural edge which looks quite nifty) but I think I started out on a nasty--but pretty--bit. It's trunk, right at a fork. The grain is really lovely. It kind of looks marble-ish, but with that comes unexpected grain reversals and hard-soft bits that aren't too easy to pick with the eye on the dry timber. Might have to invest in some electric-type hoo-diddy planer or something at some point.

Matt - The only power tool likely to be better than a really sharp, finely set handplane would be a sander. I've always managed to sneak up on a clean surface on Jacaranda by hand planing, but your blades do have to be Sharp. Being soft-ish, it doesn't scrape very well, either.

Don't rely on any amount of sealing to stop wood movement. You can slow it down, but no finish is going to completely seal the wood unless you encase it in several mm of epoxy - oils are NOT good moisture seals. Just allow for the movement in your design & fixings & you will be much better off in the long run. I look on my breadboard egdes as a useful (but slightly slow!) hygrometer.....

Cheers,

Hi Ian,

I was afraid of that haha. Actually jokes aside and in all seriousness, wood working is a good way to teach someone like me the virtues of patience.

I spent a lot of time and care getting the planer set up and super sharp, but I probably need to find myself something more decent. Get what you pay for, as they say.

I'm taking your advice on movement, and the little frame that I've knocked up this arvo has been slightly modified. There'll just be two locating dowels, one of them floating, and the slab will just sit on rails and it can do all the moving it wants in the world. Plus it's only a little piece (in the scheme of things). The sealing/finishing I'm doing is more geared toward making it slightly more stable, but far more importantly, it's going to my parents' house and needs to be pretty much maintenance-free and survive the occasional knock. Therefore: Half a tonne of urethane.

For reference, I'm going to see how I go attaching a photo.

Photo 1: Frame I knocked up this arvo.

Photo 2: Piece (of jacaranda) in question. That's quite pretty, no? It's almost quilted in parts. (Note that I'm only partly finished, er, finishing). Should polish up quite pretty.

Also I just wanted to sing out my appreciation for all your collective time sharing your knowledge and know-how, it's really very appreciated!

Originally Posted by Noctoadal

Hi Ian,

I was afraid of that haha. Actually jokes aside and in all seriousness, wood working is a good way to teach someone like me the virtues of patience.

I spent a lot of time and care getting the planer set up and super sharp, but I probably need to find myself something more decent. Get what you pay for, as they say.

I'm taking your advice on movement, and the little frame that I've knocked up this arvo has been slightly modified. There'll just be two locating dowels, one of them floating, and the slab will just sit on rails and it can do all the moving it wants in the world. Plus it's only a little piece (in the scheme of things). The sealing/finishing I'm doing is more geared toward making it slightly more stable, but far more importantly, it's going to my parents' house and needs to be pretty much maintenance-free and survive the occasional knock. Therefore: Half a tonne of urethane.

For reference, I'm going to see how I go attaching a photo.

Photo 1: Frame I knocked up this arvo.

Photo 2: Piece (of jacaranda) in question. That's quite pretty, no? It's almost quilted in parts. (Note that I'm only partly finished, er, finishing). Should polish up quite pretty.

That second shot looks more like mango to me...

Originally Posted by Exador

That second shot looks more like mango to me...

Craig - are you swayed by the colour? If you zoom in on the piece, it has the typical jagged growth-ring pattern of Jacaranda. The only other wood I'd think of with a pattern like that is (very pale) Elm. I tried to save the pic & blow up a section to show what I mean, but it pixelated out.

Cheers,