Jatoba table -- warnings or experiences?

[John Lemke]

I'm thinking pretty seriously about making two trestle tables from jatoba. Do I need a bucket of water dumped on my head?

I have a DeWalt 634 planer and no jointer -- I use a sled with the planer to get a flat face. So with the planer doing double duty, I'm wondering how many sets of knives I'll have to discard over the course of the project. I normally get skip-planed stuff, but I'm wondering if it doesn't make sense with jatoba to get it S2S; even if it cups or whatever once it gets in my basement shop, I'm thinking dealing with that might still be easier.

I'm not too concerned about ripping it (3 horse Sawstop ICS), and I figure I'll just get better at sharpening plane irons as a bonus for this project.

It's likely there are other things I should think about that I'm not -- please let me know what you think.

Thanks.

[Ryan Baker]

I hope you don't need a bucket of water dumped on your head, because I am thinking about building a jatoba dining table myself. :)

I don't think you are going to have much of a problem. Jatoba is hard, but it isn't that hard. I've worked with much worse woods than that. Most of the jatoba I have used was pretty nice to work, and didn't kill the blades too fast.

[Sam Murdoch]

I hope you don't need a bucket of water dumped on your head, because I am thinking about building a jatoba dining table myself. :)

I don't think you are going to have much of a problem. Jatoba is hard, but it isn't that hard. I've worked with much worse woods than that. Most of the jatoba I have used was pretty nice to work, and didn't kill the blades too fast.

I agree with Ryan - though it will break a bench chisel edge or 2 if you are chopping mortises. Better have the right chisel and the proper edge profile :rolleyes:. Jatoba certainly finishes nicely.

[John Lifer]

Not as many splinters in your hand as Wenge, Does finish nicely. If you use any screws, drill as large a pilot as you think you need and then drill bigger. Won't kill your blades that fast... Want to see result!

[Damon Stathatos]

Nothing to get too freaked out about jointing or planing but as has been noted, mortices are a nosebleed. For some idiot reason, I wanted squared mortices and tenons through these 5" stiles. Very hard to keep a flat, true, symmetrical mortice, thus a tenon that doesn't look to perfectly fill the mortice. The tenons were in there good, let me tell you and that door hasn't budged an iota either.

234508

[Peter Quinn]

It works fine with HSS knives over planers and jointers. Its no joy with hand tools in general due to density, use sharp tools and take light passes, pay attention to grain direction with hand planes. You don't want to waste that bucket of water if you are flattening a wide top by hand, save it, you will need a cold drink or two along the way!

[Gary Sostrin]

I have built a jatoba computer table a number of years ago at Cerritos Junior college. It is a very heavy/dense wood.
You need to watch out for splinters when handling it. I second the above on grain direction to minimize tearout when cutting. It does feels real good with a high grit sandpaper in the +300 range, and it still feels very smooth today.

[Mike Cutler]

Absolutely do not need a bucket of water dumped on your head.
I've built two large library shelf systems and the Arts and craftes style door that leads into the library room they are in out of Jatoba. I also built a large tack trunk out of Jatoba and wenge. The library project itself had over 1000 M&T joints between the two bookshelves and the door.
You do not need to start with S2S. In fact I would recomend against it because you want to control thickness. Jatoba planes just fine with a planer, no exotic cutter heads are required. The stock cutter head that came with my Jet 15" did just fine. Your tablesaw will have no problems ripping jatoba. My tablesaws are a 1 1/2HP Jet contractor saw and a 2HP General Hybrid saw and I had no problems ripping 8/4 jatoba. I do use dedicated rip blades though, full kerf CMT's. Mortises were done with a router and a Delta 14-651.
Peter is spot on about working it with hand tools. You will not be hogging off material using a plane iron with jatoba. The plane irons will be set very light. A plane set to work for jatoba will almost be set too low to use on oak.
All screw holes will need to be pre drilled. You can just about tap and thread a machine screw into jatoba.( An NC thread probably could be tapped and threaded into jatoba.)
Get your material as close to quartersawn as you can. Flatsawn jatoba with lots of grain showing releases a lot of stress during the milling process. Large panels with grain figure work out well if attention is paid, but small panels, rails, stiles, legs can get a little problematic.
For panel edge glue ups I would recommend epoxy. Not because it's any better or stronger than tite bond, but because the large panels can get pretty heavy to horse around and manipulate. Laying them on a flat surface, with cauls to keep them flat, and then clamping with little more pressure than required to align the edge is a lot easier than trying to achieve the uniform clamping pressures required for Titebond, and positioning all the clamps it wouuld require on both sides of the glueup. Some of my glueups were 5/4 and 6/4, 10' long by 36" wide. I did them in a vertical plane, with just a little more pressure than weight and gravity to pull the joint into alignment, and cauls to keep them straight. I work by myself though, so sometimes I have to go outside the box.:eek: You also want to tape the glued edges of Jatoba. It will make the final finish and sanding easier. Removing excess glue from jatoba takes a little work.
Jatoba finishes beautifully with very little effort. A wiping varnish makes it almost fool proof.

[pat warner]

"It's likely there are other things I should think about that I'm not -- please let me know what you think."
*************************************
It is hardwood alright and subject to changing shape.
So what ever measures you take to prevent cup, crook, or bow, with ordinary stock:
Do them in spades with Jatoba.
Material prep with sharp tooling is about the same as any hardwood.
Gluing and screwing: no Roger Thornhill surprises.
I do let the stuff sit thick x 7-10 days, however. Then inspect for distortion before finish milling (http://patwarner.com/images/jtable.jpg).

[Steve Wurster]

Love the North by Northwest reference. :-) Don't forget, it's Roger O. Thornhill... the 'O' stands for nothing.

[Mark Hoffman]

I've built a bathrooms worth of cabinets out of it and am now building a standing desk and side table for a friend. never had a problem with my DeWalt 635 until one board i used for my current project. The board looked like it had been outside on top of a stack for a while because it had grayed somewhat but it absolutely shredded my planer blades. I thought at first it was just time to replace so I replaced with infinity blades and shredded those too. I finally got through it but it cost me $75 for the blades. Ironically none of the boards impacted my jointer knives.

Agree on finishing. I sand to 220 and use General Finishes Arm-r-seal. feels like a slab of granite when i'm done. also, it really really holds an edge when you machine it. aside from splinters i've actually cut my fingers on machined edges. not sure of your source in madison but kettle moraine hardwoods in the slinger area usually has a good supply. actually found about a 17 inch wide board there for my current project. price has skyrocketed in the last 3 months though. i think i paid 7.50ish about a month ago.

[Paul Symchych]

I second the comments on jatoba. I've built several tables and other small things with it. It used to be dirt cheap -as low as $2.50/BF and then the flooring guys discovered it. On the pricey side now for something that is used for railroad ties in Brazil.
Accept it's hardness -that is a given. I didn't get any fancy tools or special edges and had no troubles. It cuts, planes, glues very well and finishes beautifully. You'll break screws if you don't predrill them accurately.