Kamagong (Ebony) jewelry box

very nice looken wood.

-- Ike, Big Daddies Woodshop, http://www.icombadaniels@yahoo.com

I really wish I’d taken a picture of the board I started with. First impressions can certainly be misleading. It is nice but pretty hard stuff. One piece I had I put in a glass of water and it sunk right to the bottom. Hard and dense!

Nice wood. Looks more or less like Rosewood.
The first time I ripped rosewood I did not put my shirt on, the saw dust is so brittle & hard hitting my body just like I was sand-blasting my chest….LOL.

-- masrol, kuala lumpur, MY.

Haven’t worked rosewood so no point of reference. It is a pretty wood. Hope to get this finished soon.

I have never heard of the wood. Beautiful grain. Was it hard to work with?

-- Tim, Missouri ....Inside every older person is a younger person wondering what the heck happened

Now that is some pretty lumber…. Looks like it is in good hands. Look forward to see more on this jewel.

-- Dan ~ Texarkana, Tx.

A pretty piece of wood, I am sure you will do it proud!

-- Folly ever comes cloaked in opportunity!

Eagle1 – Kamagong is the local (Philippines) name for this locally grown member of the Ebony family. The tree produces a hairy fruit called Mabolo and sometimes the wood is also called by that name. Here’s a quote from somewhere “Kamagong or “Mabolo” is a fruit tree found only in the Philippines, the wood of which is extremely dense and hard, and famous for its dark color. It belongs to the ebony family (genus Diospyros), and like many other very hard woods is sometimes called “iron wood” so called because its wood is iron-like and nearly unbreakable, hence the term “ironwood”. The word Mabolo is Filipino for hairy and describes the fruit’s hairy exterior. The Mabolo or Velvet-apple (Diospyros blancoi) is native to the Philippines. It is bright red when ripe. It is also native to China, where it is known as Kaki.”

The heart wood can be almost pure black or it can have a sort of tiger stripe wavey grain. It is a very dense wood with a SG near or over 1 which means it won’t float on water. I stuck one small sample in water and it went right to the bottom. Being that hard and dense is can be somewhat hard on tools. In that resawing picture I had to go quite slow and there was occasional smoke being emmitted reminding me to ‘Back Off’. You can sand it to a glass smooth surface so will actually shine without a finish. I have gotten to like working with it. A nice and available wood here. And it offers very interesting visual effects. This box will be going back to my dentist – actually his wife who will make more use of a jewelry box I’m sure. She co-drills with him in their dental practice here.

now that you explained the history of the wood, it makes me want to get some. Do any of the lumber yards ship international? If you get from a lumber yard.

-- Ike, Big Daddies Woodshop, http://www.icombadaniels@yahoo.com

Bill,
This is a very nice blend of grain from Kamagong. Violet, black and brown stripes are not so common. Nowadays you can only find brown, black and sap (light brown). My previous experience with this wood, I can make a box with thickness of 5 mm nearly 3/16”. I really love to work with Kamagong but hard to find.

I think rosewood can be compared with hard narra (amboyna) but Kamagong is quite hard.

Nice box and I know the finish will be so lustrous. It accepts any finish but I like the polyurethane in it.
God Bless.

-- Bert

Bigike – I saw some very similar in a woodworking store in Phoenix. Went by the name Makassar Ebony. $70 /bd-ft.

Bert – I was somewhat surprised at the grain considering how the original board looked. As you are well aware there is often great beauty hiding just under the surface of an ugly bold board.

The main box in this jewlery box is 1/2 inch thick. The bottoms of the main part and of the small sliding tray and the base are 1/8” to just fit into a saw kerf groove. I just finished cutting and glueing the base pieces together so letting them dry. This jewelry box actually has a hidden compartment in it. Maybe when it is completed I can show that.
Haven’t yet decided about the finish. I usually like lacquer as I did on the mirror. But I may just oil this. We’ll see.