Brownheart square plate

[Dave Mount]

I acquired a bargain bin 1x6 brownheart board, not really knowing what I was going to do with it. I'd never turned brownheart (aka wacapou), but last night seemed like a good time to find out what it was like.

It's moderately hard, same Janka hardness as shagbark hickory. Turned reasonably well, but even on smooth peeling cuts on the face grain the shavings weren't ribbons. Seemed like it had a mild blunting effect but not bad. When turning the bottom, I had to cut uphill on the wings (outside in) to keep from breaking out the edge, then clean up the roughness with an NRS. It machined smoothly enough that I only had to do touchup sanding by hand -- it is super oily though, it turns sandpaper to a gummy mess very quickly. In the second picture, I had wiped the dust off with a rag wetted with naptha so I could see the surface better -- the sawdust is kind of gummy. The grain is kind of like pheasantwood (which I've never turned, but have seen pictures of); the wood database says they are relatives.

Anyway, some intel if you ever come across some turning stock.

Best,

Dave

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[Paul Williams]

Very nice plate Dave, and an interesting piece of wood. I agree that it does look similar to pheasantwood or as the ukulele maker on Maui refers to it, Kolahala. My cousin has a friend who makes ukes, and she boxed up his cutoffs and sent me several USPS large flat rate boxes. I have had pieces large enough to turn bowls, but mostly I use it for lids or embellishments. I have not turned brownheart, and I have not experienced the oily issue that you described with kolahala. Here is a photo. The bottom left corner shows the grain pattern that gives it the pheasantwood name. I am not sure how to describe cutting it so that the pheasant feather pattern appears. I think of it as cutting at a slight angle to the flat side of a quarter sawn board. If you have some scraps I would suggest you try planning or cutting at different angles and see if you can produce the pattern. I have never been able to produce a significant size area of thee pattern on a bowl.
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