About 65 years ago in a small rural school in southern Wyoming, male high school students were required to take shop class. While most focus was on woodworking we were also exposed to some metal working as well as some rudimentary things like how to drive an old D5 Cat. The school systems in Wyoming in those days were pretty well funded by royalty taxes on natural resources. The school did not charge students for wood used in shop classes and there was a fair variety of woods available. I remember using black walnut, oak, red cedar and what was called Korina by the shop teacher but also known as white limba from Africa. I don't know the sources for the materials furnished by the school shop but to find an African hardwood in Wyoming in the 1950s can only be described as unique.
I had built a gun cabinet from the white limba and as I moved over the years, it went with me; probably about 6 or 7 long distance moves. The construction of items from the shop tended to focus on glue and a lot of nails that were sunk below the surface and the resulting holes filled with a shop made wood filler. Over the years and in all the different climatic areas I lived, the glue joints eventually failed. I recently downsized my home and the gun cabinet just wasn't going to fit so I dismantled it and planed it to remove the residual varnish. The pictures below show the color of the finished piece with the yellowed varnish and then the planed material after removal of the varnish.
I will likely use the salvaged materials for a small desk but I'm curious as to why the listings for white limba on the auction site value the material so highly? I don't think the wood is on the banned wood listings. If there is a high value for this material, I might consider selling it and purchasing a domestic for the desk.
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