I was sold a piece of milk chocolate colored wood with a tropical looking grain which the seller said was angelique. It passes as similar to pictures I find on the web labeled as angelique. I see some references to hard and full of silica. Tonight I turned a sphere from a 3"x3" piece.
Wow...what an experience. The square roughed round fairly uneventfully, but when I started to round it over...past about 20 degrees to parallel to the grain, it was almost impossible to pick up a cut with a spindle gouge. A negative rake scraper would start to cut but would be dull to the point of refusal in 2 seconds ( I literally mean 2 seconds). I kept sharpening the gouge (Thompson) and it would last for one pass...you could feel it dulling as you went. Once I rotated the sphere to an endgrain cut and switched to a bowl gouge (also Thompson), I'd get four light passes per sharpening, one near the tip on each side and one on each wing. I believe I sharpened 12 times turning a 3" sphere!
Interestingly, the cut quality was not bad; I just couldn't do it for more than a few seconds.
Maybe this was just an piece extra rich in silica, but this sphere will serve as a trophy to persistence and the rest of the 3x3x12 blank will go on the shelf and wait to someday become an April fool's day joke on a fellow turner.
Anyone else have experience with angelique?
Best,
Dave