I bought some sapele today for a step stool I am going to make (mothers day). Never used this stuff before. The boards I bought have a really nice wavy grain pattern. Looking forward to the finished product.
Ever use it? Work nice?
day). Never used this stuff before. The >boards I bought have a really nice wavy grain Pattern. Looking forward to the finished product.
One small project, used it on a lid for a box. Keep in mind, all pieces of wood are different, and are only globally connected with specific traits.
The pieces I had were brittle, splintered easy, and when sawn came off in chips. It glued up OK, but it was prone to some tearout when planing it out. It was miserable to sand and made me cough and sneeze a lot.
BUT...
The finished piece was a knockout. No pain, no gain, eh? I put a couple of super thinned coats of BLO on it, let the top sit for about a week. Went back in and shot a few coats of Old Masters lacquer on it, and let it sit for another three weeks or so and knocked off a little of the shine with some Liberon 0000 and Johnson's paste wax.
You don't have to be much of a craftsman to get satisfactory ooohs and ahhhs when you have a nice piece of this stuff properly finished.
Just make sure you light that grain up with a good finish as the grain on some of the pieces is nothing short of stunning.
I wouldn't build a bookcase out of the stuff, but for jewelry or keepsake boxes, it is great.
Of course, YMMV.
I haven't, but you will find this of interest:
If you have problems handplaning the wood, try planing cross grain. I don't know for sure what you get when you buy sapele. I think it is one of the African mahoganies.
When you see heavy ribbon figured "mahogany" paneling, it is sapele. Obviously the figure can cause problems.
Guy we had staying with us last week (stranded hitchhiker) turned out to be a woodworker. He's been working with sapele quite a bit, and mentioned it was hard on tools and that the dust was noxious when we were comparing notes on different timbers.
-P.
It is also very common to see this used in European wooden ship model kits. Typical size might be 2 x 5 mm strips used, for example, to plank the hull. John
You're too young to remember the '70s (the Sapele decade) aren't you?
I'd never use it. Not a bad timber, but too many bad memories of ugly over-used veneer over ugly chipboard-box 'furniture'.
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