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