My thoughts on Lyptus

[Keith Christopher]

Well I have been making the Ryan singer designed bed for my daughter (who loved the look AWESOME job Ryan) She liked the color of lyptus so I bought a bunch.

This wood is HEAVY I mean heavy. The other thing I noticed is this wood splinters ALOT and is rough on the hands. It tools well with sharp tools but if you're slightly dull tearout and chipping is GOING to happen. in cutting the dovetails, I have to sharpen my LV chisels between them. Lyptus dulls tools fairly quickly, the chisels stay sharp enough to work other woods but I noticed some tearing when paring if I don't sharpen between dovetails. It sands well and makes a fine powdery dust when sawing, like most dense woods. No noticable 'smell' when milling it. I like this wood well enough, but there are some caveats when working with it.

[John Gregory]

Keith is right on the money on everything he said. We just finished a dresser made from Lyptus. Thread is here (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=24011&highlight=grandson). We planed it to thickness using our Ridgid TP1300. Due to the heavy weight of the long boards we used, the planer had a difficult time pulling the board through. And we went through one set of blades on this project. I had to resaw a piece on my under powered BS and it was actually easier to resaw than Red Oak. Having said all of the, we will be using Lyptus again. I paid $3.75 per board foot (4/4) IIRC.