Grandaughters Hope Chest

[Jim King]

This is leaving the Amazon Next week for Wisconsin for the grandaughters high school graduation. Wood is Pink Flame , tomorrow it will have a needle point top over a 2 inch foam cushion.

[Don Baer]

WOW Jim thats realy pretty wood. You sure get some great material to work with down there. I am sure she'll love it.

[lou sansone]

wow... the variety of woods all over the world really makes one ponder the big question

lou

[Jerry Strojny]

Yikes man!! That wood is on fire! Love the piece.:D

Welcome back to WI (if that be the case) otherwise Welcome to WI.

[Jerry Olexa]

Interesting wood...

[John Miliunas]

Gee, how many different ways can one say, "WOW"???!!!! :D Beautiful wood and nice execution. How about some details? You can start with the species! Drop dead gorgeous! :) :cool:

[Bob Noles]

OMG... I'd almost kill for some wood like that. Awesome in everyway especially the craftsmanship.

Excellent job Jim!

[Ted Jay]

OMG... I'd almost kill for some wood like that. Awesome in everyway especially the craftsmanship.

Excellent job Jim!

That wood would make an excellent looking guitar. Of course it would have to be a 1/2" or 3/8" laminate top, it's pricey....

very nice job Jim!!!!

[Bruce Page]

Spectacular!
Are you sure you want to cover that top? Tell us a little about “Pink Flame”. Hardwood, softwood? Stable? How does it machine? How does it take a finish? That stuff is …..spectacular!!

[John Timberlake]

Great looking chest. Sure she will love it. Does the wood stay that color? And when do you find time to do all these projects?

[Corey Hallagan]

Wow, that is just striking! Beautiful work Jim!

Corey

[Helen Gee]

I love the natural alternating colors of the wood!!! Screaming hot present that will be cherished for a long time :)

[Larry Cooke]

This is leaving the Amazon Next week for Wisconsin for the grandaughters high school graduation. Wood is Pink Flame , tomorrow it will have a needle point top over a 2 inch foam cushion.Jim,

As the others have already stated, that is one beautiful chest. I really envy you and the choices of wood you have at hand.

Larry

[Brian Jarnell]

Yes an interesting wood,will go with most decors.

[Pete Harbin]

Really stunning Jim! I must confess I've never heard of Pink Flame. Is it a variation of a species we're more familiar with? Do tell.

Pete

[David Duke]

As has already been said several times, great work on the hope chest and that wood is stunning!!

[Jim King]

To answer some of the questions from the woodworkers sites and my email caused by the Hope Chest posting my wife and I live in Iquitos, Peru in the upper Amazon Basin and have for about 20 years been interested in the wood , first as a collecting hobby and then starting as a business.

A typical day for me “working” is to select over new samples brought in by our ex charcoal makers now turned exotic wood collectors and pick out if any would be worth proceeding with. I used to have to spend time in the jungle with the charcoal and firewood people finding new species but now understand what I want and bring in new samples almost daily.
If we find a new species of value we immediately go out to properly collect to specimens to ID the species , a project that can take a year or two per species waiting for the flowers, seeds etc. required for proper ID. This is turning also into an experimental project and one of the interesting things we will be trying next is to clone and grow Bloodwood burls.

The rest of the day I spend working on projects that will best show the grains and colors of the woods and to know if it is a workable wood or not. Some of the designs will become production items and we will produce them and export to the States and Canada. We have full time turners that are now better than I am, furniture makers ,carvers and finishers in what we call our fun shop also better than me. BUT I always get to make the first one of each, still the boss.

On the other side of the street is where we produce in volume our turning blanks and now S4S lumber for export and we are constantly enlarging that.

As for the Pink Flame Wood (Rinorea sp. nov. #1.) . This is a species that took a couple of years to ID and finally it officially has a scientific name. It is a new and until we found it an unknown species and only a small handful of people in the world as of yet have it. The wood ID program is an ongoing process with Mihaly Czako, Ph.D. ,Senior Research Associate , The University of South Carolina , Department of Biological Sciences , 700 Sumter St. , Columbia, SC 29208, USA . Naming and identifying the wood species in the Amazon is at least a 1000 year project but we will make a small start. As for the marketing name “Pink Flame” that is simply the result of calling a few friends together with a couple of bottles of rum and coming up with a name. We can say that it will stay pink for two years and not loose its color as that is how long we have had the first turning on the shelf in the office. It is an extremely delicate wood in turning blank form and in fact we are buying a vacumn pack machine to pack this species as well as others to eliminate the problem and then people can rough turn and boil the still wet blank and eliminate the cracking problem.. No matter what you do the blank wants to crack without this type of packaging and handling.

On the other hand the lumber can be sawn, put in the shade, put in the sun, put directly into the kiln and NOTHING happens to it. After kiln drying it is extremely stable and a bit hard but works well. As we live just a little bit after the end of the world 2500 miles up the Amazon with no road out to the real world we only have ocean going shipping vessels arriving every six weeks and so it will be at least three months until any quantity of this wood is available up there. We do have air service daily. Hope this answers every ones questions. Jim