Kwila, Wenge and what?

Your mystery wood reminds me of some wood taken from an overseas crate in the moving industry 20 years ago. I milled a couple of pieces for a fellow employee and glued them up for a relief carving blank. The lumber was the same colour as your blanks, very dark, and very heavy. The surface felt waxy and oily . When the guy cut into the wood tiny beads of oily, sticky sap covered the relieved surfaces the next morning. I’m interested to find out what it might have been.

-- Phil Brown, Ontario

Looks like Blackwood to me, Scott.

It’s what I’m using for the pegs in my Thorsen Tabl…. er, entry.

-- Ethan, http://thekiltedwoodworker.com

Looks like your going to have some fun. Once you decide what you like, check out their lumber stock. A 5 foot purpleheart board costs about as much as 10 pen blanks.

: ^ )

-- We must guard our enthusiasm as we would our life - James Krenov

I checked Woodcraft’s web site and the wood reference for the pen blank assortment still does not list a #43. It indicated it was last updated in Nov 2006.

-- We must guard our enthusiasm as we would our life - James Krenov

I think I have some of your mystery wood and I am at a loss as well. When I went to my normal supplier for some Wenge for my Thoreson table, he told me he was all out. Someone had come in and bought all he had in stock, about 60bf and said he wanted to make a tool box out of it. good luck buddy, hope you have a couple of extra saw blades on hand. : )

So that said, I call one of my neighbor and he happend to have a the mystery wood in his shorts bin. He said he picked it up a couple of years ago at a ww show. He thought it was Iron wood. Not sure but it is very heavy for its size.

-- Greg - Charles Town, WV

Scott could be Zircote. It has dark black stripes and also a dark gray /brown wood. I’ve got a few pieces here and its great wood.

-- I've been blessed with a father who liked to tinker in wood, and a wife who lets me tinker in wood. Southern Delaware karson_morrison@bigfoot.com †

They list zircote as number 23, maybe as I cut into it I’ll have some more clues to offer up. For now, I’ll just presume human error in numbering, and figure this is either ebony, blackwood or zircote.

Thanks for that added insight Wayne, I expect to pay less for raw lumber than precut or especially premilled blanks… a couple of the choices in this bag really “spoke” to me, and I really needed to know what the different species are. Woodcraft had a discount table with some pieces of bowl stock for cheap, but didn’t label many of them.

-- I am always doing what I cannot do yet, in order to learn how to do it. - Van Gogh -- http://blanchardcreative.etsy.com -- http://snbcreative.wordpress.com/

I realized after reading Karson’s post, that I had a prep’ed Zircote pin blank sitting by my lathe. I belive Karson has, as ususal, hit the nail on the head. It looks exactly like the one you show.

I agree with your approach. Once I figure out what I like, then I switch to larger lumber. and every once in a while, I will buy an assortment for some diversity.

-- We must guard our enthusiasm as we would our life - James Krenov

Desert Ironwood?

-- "Bordnerizing" perfectly good lumber for over a decade.

update – looks like, and drilled like the Blackwood blanks Karson added to the Pen Swap. Very smooth where cut, ultra smooth where drilled, very fine, oily shavings like coffee grounds. Is Zircote similar in workability?

-- I am always doing what I cannot do yet, in order to learn how to do it. - Van Gogh -- http://blanchardcreative.etsy.com -- http://snbcreative.wordpress.com/