I went down to my local hardwood dealer to get some nice wood for the
new double vanity I'm building for my bathroom. I had been thinking I
would use mahogany, that is until I saw the price of mahogany nowadays.
At $8.00/b.f. that seemed pretty steep. I started thinking of maybe
going with walnut, but I wasn't sure I'd be happy with that color, and
it wasn't that cheap either ($6.50/b.f.).

My dealer suggested using Jatoba (a.k.a. Brazilian Cherry). The wood
looked nice and was a good bargain at $3.75/b.f. I've not used it
before, but some research shows it is a very tough, dense exotic
hardwood. It certainly was heavy.

I'm looking for any experiences with using this wood. I know it is used
for flooring a lot, but how is it as a furniture wood? I've done some
work with Ipe and hope that Jatoba isn't as much of a pain in the ass,
particularly the nasty Ipe dust. How difficult is it to work? What
kind of finishes have people used with it? I'm thinking of a film
finish for the bathroom usage, would that work with this wood?

It is hard to find visual examples of furniture built with Jatoba. What
are your thoughts on how good it would look to build my vanity from it?

Thanks for any thoughts.

-Mark

On Sat, 21 Jan 2006 15:45:49 -0500, Mark Blum
wrote:

I went down to my local hardwood dealer to get some nice wood for the
new double vanity I'm building for my bathroom. I had been thinking I
would use mahogany, that is until I saw the price of mahogany nowadays.
At $8.00/b.f. that seemed pretty steep. I started thinking of maybe
going with walnut, but I wasn't sure I'd be happy with that color, and
it wasn't that cheap either ($6.50/b.f.).

My dealer suggested using Jatoba (a.k.a. Brazilian Cherry). The wood
looked nice and was a good bargain at $3.75/b.f. I've not used it
before, but some research shows it is a very tough, dense exotic
hardwood. It certainly was heavy.

I'm looking for any experiences with using this wood. I know it is used
for flooring a lot, but how is it as a furniture wood? I've done some
work with Ipe and hope that Jatoba isn't as much of a pain in the ass,
particularly the nasty Ipe dust. How difficult is it to work? What
kind of finishes have people used with it? I'm thinking of a film
finish for the bathroom usage, would that work with this wood?

It is hard to find visual examples of furniture built with Jatoba. What
are your thoughts on how good it would look to build my vanity from it?

Thanks for any thoughts.

-Mark

Very hard wood. What little I've done with it, I've found that it
splinters very easily and easily tears out, make sure you use climb cuts at
the end of any cuts you are going to have going around end grain. It does
finish nicely.




+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

There is a nice article on woodcentral.com describing a hutch made of
Jatoba -- migth be worth a read. Its in the main section under "messages"


"Mark Blum" wrote in message
...
I went down to my local hardwood dealer to get some nice wood for the
new double vanity I'm building for my bathroom. I had been thinking I
would use mahogany, that is until I saw the price of mahogany nowadays.
At $8.00/b.f. that seemed pretty steep. I started thinking of maybe
going with walnut, but I wasn't sure I'd be happy with that color, and
it wasn't that cheap either ($6.50/b.f.).

My dealer suggested using Jatoba (a.k.a. Brazilian Cherry). The wood
looked nice and was a good bargain at $3.75/b.f. I've not used it
before, but some research shows it is a very tough, dense exotic
hardwood. It certainly was heavy.

I'm looking for any experiences with using this wood. I know it is used
for flooring a lot, but how is it as a furniture wood? I've done some
work with Ipe and hope that Jatoba isn't as much of a pain in the ass,
particularly the nasty Ipe dust. How difficult is it to work? What
kind of finishes have people used with it? I'm thinking of a film
finish for the bathroom usage, would that work with this wood?

It is hard to find visual examples of furniture built with Jatoba. What
are your thoughts on how good it would look to build my vanity from it?

Thanks for any thoughts.

-Mark

Mark Blum wrote:
It is hard to find visual examples of furniture built with Jatoba.

Here are some...
http://images.google.com/images?hl=e...re&sa=N&tab=wi

--
dadiOH
____________________________

dadiOH's dandies v3.06...
....a help file of info about MP3s, recording from
LP/cassette and tips & tricks on this and that.
Get it at http://mysite.verizon.net/xico

Pretty wicked stuff; I make tools & some furniture out of it.
See the http://www.patwarner.com/images/t_square2.jpg link.
Varies considerably from stick to flitch. Heavy, sand and glues well,
mills well too.
Pretty, best you get everything flat before cutting and joining. If it
bends from misuse, you can't flatten it. Ergo, don't do any illegal
x-grain gluing . Stuff left unsupported in your assembly may change
shape.

Mark Blum wrote:
I'm looking for any experiences with using this wood.

I've made a couple of things (bookshelves, parts of an armoire, tables out
of the cut up pieces of the cupped and twisted amroire panels ...)

When dry it is brittle (but not as bad as say purpleheart) and may tear out.
A large amount of the wood I've bought was not fully dry, and I've seen
almost unbelievable movement and collapse in some flatsawn boards. Around
here it's pretty common to find 18" wide boards, but rarely dry. It seems
stable enough after a year or two in our 15% humidity. But the appearance
and dent resistance of the final piece make all the pain worth it.

-MJB

In article .com,
says...
Pretty, best you get everything flat before cutting and joining. If it
bends from misuse, you can't flatten it. Ergo, don't do any illegal
x-grain gluing . Stuff left unsupported in your assembly may change
shape.


Thanks for the feedback Pat. I'm curious about your above comments. Do
you mean that it will sag under it's own weight? And what kind of
misuse will cause it to bend?

In article ,
says...
There is a nice article on woodcentral.com describing a hutch made of
Jatoba -- migth be worth a read. Its in the main section under "messages"

Thanks for the pointer. That was indeed an interesting write-up and a
beautiful hutch. Obviously after that project the author has extensive
experience working with the wood.