Sapele

[Julie Moriarty]

Has anyone here worked with sapele? I just bought a beautiful 16"x50" piece of 8/4 figured sapele. It was one of those "If it pleases the eye, you gotta buy!" purchases. :D I have no idea what I'll make.

But I was wondering about the workability of the wood before I take a plane or chisel to it. Any suggestions are appreciated.

Thanks,
- Julie

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Woodworking/sapele_02_zps93a123d0.jpg
I splashed some mineral spirits on it to show the figure better. The pics still don't do it justice.
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Woodworking/sapele_01_zps832404e3.jpg

[Jim Neeley]

Julie,

That would make a *stunning* top for a blanket chest. With it's thickness it'd be plenty strong as a seat and could support carving or inlay, if desired.

It should work well although you will need to be careful to avoid tear-out due to the changing grain directions, Specifically, if you plane the board (hand or power) take shallow cuts, especially near final thickness, to keep it clean.

If working by hand, you make need to use some combination of a high-angle blade, uber sharp blade or very close chip breaker on your plane, or a scraper for final finishing.

If working by power, you may well need to allow additional time for sanding and may need a hard pad to avoid low spots..

In either case, watch for and be careful to maintain flatness on the surface, otherwise you may find some softer spots lower than others.

Spectacular board!! :-)

Jim

[carl zietz]

Are you in for a treat, I made some lace pillow stands for my wife out of it. It works easily, and with just a natural oil finish, is almost seems to glow from within.

[Dave Cav]

I've made a number of pieces with it. A big china cabinet, a mantle, end and coffee tables, and so on. It is pretty easy to work, isn't too hard, and finishes well. It can have interlocking ribbon grain, especially with QS, so it can be a pain to hand plane. Use sharp tools, and make sure your TS blades and router cutters are clean because it can burn, but it's not a big problem. One of the major importers is down the road from me, so I am fortunate to be able to get both plain and QS in about any size I want for decent pricing.

[Joe Angrisani]

Nice figure on that board! Almost "tiger" it seems.

I am in the process of building a custom master vanity out of quartersawn sapele. As my wife's first introduction to what having a shop means, I took her to the lumberyard where she picked out what she wanted it made in (she loved the just-what-she-wanted aspect and I think my evil plan worked). Anyway, we brought home two 17"x120" quartersawn 4/4 slabs that will make the two rows of 5 drawers in the 7' by 22" vanity, as well as the face frame (5.25/bf, but that's another gloat).

My drawer fronts are rough-sized and stickered while I work on other remodel projects, but the carcases and face frame is done. I didn't have too much problem with tearout, but there was a little. All final machining cuts were about 1/32", and that helped alot I think. I finished the face frame with about 4 coats of Minwax Wipe-On Gloss Poly, quick-sanded with 320 grit after coats 2, 3 and 4, then about 4 coats of Minwax Wipe-On Satin Poly. Literally took about 4 mins per coat for the face frame, hence the seemingly extra coats. The early gloss coats seemed to build faster, and helped alot with filling the pores.

We tried a few finish combinations on some scrap. Oiling first darkened the dark areas of the sapele, and barely changed the light areas. Different look, nothing wrong, but not what we wanted. Turned out the gloss layers under a satin finish made the light tones vibrant without emphasizing the darks too much.

The first picture shows the two drawer front boards after the face frame material was removed but before being cut to individual length. The 7-foot-plus boards are sorta in the picture the way they'll appear on the long vanity front. The next two show the face frame. We really wanted the lighter tones to pop, and I think picture #3 shows we succeeded.

248733 248734 248735

[Clark Harbaugh]

I've built a few items with sample. It works similar to mahogany. A trick I learned from David Marks is to use potassium dichromate to darken the color. Freshly cut sample will almost be goldish/Brown in color, but as it ages it turns more red. The potassium dichromate gives you that dark red look instantly instead of waiting years.

[Julie Moriarty]

WOW! Thank you! Some great tips and ideas here. Blanket chest? Hmmmm... Interesting... I have a FWW issue where Tommy Mac made one, lots of carving on it and that's not my strong suit, in fact I'm in pre-school in that area. Still, that is a direction that never crossed my mind. I also had no idea sapale turns red with age, a nice plus. I'll have to pick up some PD and see how it works.

I think this episode in my woodworking life will be filled with a lot of learning and hopefully a lot of fun.

[Jim Neeley]

Oh boy, Julie, will it ever... :)

One heads-up, in advance, if you're new to all of this... although you'd never find it, it you ask a top woodworker if they made any "mistakes" in there finest piece, if they're honest they'll admit to more than one if there's anything to the project. Such is the nature of "one-off" work. The mission is to either incorporate it into the design or make it blend in. It'll never disappear to you but it's crazy what others *won't* notice as they're admiring the rest of the project!!!

Once I started looking at my projects as a journeys rather than destinations I found my shop time immensely satisfying.

Just my $0.02.. YMMV.. and if you have lots of experience, please forgive my tone if it appears to be condescending. I just wish somebody had told me that when I started. :)

Jim in Alaska

[scott spencer]

My brief encounter with Sapele is that it works well, looks great! Much like mahogany.

[lowell holmes]

I might try to get more wood and make an end table with it. You might consider maple. I saw sapele and maple tables at New Hope Pa.

They were gorgeous. If you hand plane, consider planing cross grain to alleviate tearout.

[Clark Harbaugh]

I will caution you on the potassium dichromate trick. You will need to wear thick gloves and a respirator. And avoid contact with the skin. You will need to mix it with water, though I don't remember the amount. I know you can find that info on David Marks' web site under the question/answer section. You simply wipe it on then use 0000 steel wool to bring out the grain. It will make the grain appear 3D and dance with the light. Its hard to explain, but you'll understand once you see it.

[Thomas love]

How about a Demilune248872

[Alan Lightstone]

I work with it almost exclusively. Works like Mahogany. Can come out gorgeous.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

I've got a stash of it slated to be a jewelry box for my wife. Figured it would look nice in the Ruhlman art deco style. Someday...

[Chris Fournier]

I love buying pieces of wood like that and just staring at them in my shop. If they never get used, they still earn their keep as dream material. I couldn't use that slab as is, I'd have to figure out a way to use it for solids and shop sawn veneer to make an entire piece of furniture.

[Dave Cav]

Nice pieces, Alan. The drafting table is almost too pretty to use.


I work with it almost exclusively. Works like Mahogany. Can come out gorgeous.

[Julie Moriarty]

Thanks for the extra tips! Keep 'em coming!!! :)

I was down in the shop this morning, curious to see what a little handwork could do to the piece. I first sharpened the iron on my smoothing plane. The piece is so flat I just didn't see the need to use a jack plane on it, at least not for this test.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Woodworking/sapele_pl-03_zps08430b52.jpg
I started by planing from the far end towards the end closest in the pic above. I skewed the plane at about 30-40 degrees and used a high angle frog on the plane. You can see the shavings at the bottom. The results were so-so with some sections lifting to create a 60 or 80 grit sandpaper feel but almost no chip-out. I only planed half the width, on the right.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Woodworking/sapele_pl-04_zps6cfa6c59.jpg
This is taken from the other end (you use the can of mineral spirits for camera orientation in the 4 pictures). The section on the right was planed in the opposite direction, towards the right. The results were much better with no "sandpaper feel" anywhere. I've worked high figure maple and found it to be much more difficult to get the same results as I did with the sapele. That was a nice surprise.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Woodworking/sapele_pl-02_zps75c0298c.jpg
This was taken from the rear of the bench. It seems a better angle for getting a real feel for the appearance. There is a difference between the planed section and the untouched section but the picture doesn't show it. That separation line is about the half-width point.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Woodworking/sapele_pl-01_zps02ed75f1.jpg
You can see the area planed a little better in this picture. It starts in the lower 3rd on the right and runs up to about the half way point where the mineral spirits are. I tried the spokeshave to see if I could get better results. I didn't. I need some practice using a spokeshave on high figure woods. It chattered a lot and was very difficult to set perfectly.

When I bought this piece (and a 17x64 8/4 piece of bubinga too :D) I was thinking I could take the bandsaw to any sections I wanted to resaw. I have an 18" Jet and it's handled anything I have taken to it very well. But I never bothered to measure cutting height for resawing. When I got home, I found it's only 10". :( When my eye caught this piece in the store, I was thinking "resaw and bookend". If I go that route, I'll have to take it back to them and have them do it.

Still, this piece is really inspiring me. I sometimes let pieces like this sit in the shop a year or more, waiting for the "idea light bulb" to turn on. I'm not sure I can wait that long! But I do have some projects lined up to do immediately so I will have to use all the self discipline I have (which isn't much) to get those things done and ignore that devil whispering temptations in my ear. :p

[Jim Becker]

Yes, one of the tack trunk commissions I did used Sapele for all the trim work and I really enjoyed working with it. Here are a couple photos...the "field" is QSWO veneer with a yellow dye. (customer request)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v646/a-j-adopt/Woodworking/Tack-Trunks/Diane-Trunk-1.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v646/a-j-adopt/Woodworking/Tack-Trunks/Diane-Trunk-2.jpg