Ever pick the short straw at work? Things where I work wood aren't slow, but they have evolved economically to a point where we seem to be taking jobs that are, shall i say, less savory than in the past few years. Having finished my current project a bit ahead of schedule, I went to get my next job card, and i could see by the look on the bosses face that it wasn't going to be pretty. Or easy. Or fun.
Short story, cumaru stair treads, starting with 10/4 material, 10"-18" widths, 10' lengths, to finish at 2" flattened, 48" lengths. Run that through your head for a second. Ever pick up a piece of cumaru? About as heavy on volume as IPE, just as hard, but it smells like horse dung when milled, and the splinters seem to cause an immediate infection. Makes white oak seem like balsa wood. Ouch.
We had a guy for a while that couldn't pronounce cumaru, so he called it "that camaro wood", and when he quit, it was because he was fatigued from working a job involving cumaru. I'm a bit more robust than he, but I understand presently why he pronounced on his way out the door "i feel like I just got hit by a camaro".
If you ever have a chance to work with cumaru, don't.
So I'm curious, what is everyone's LEAST favorite species to work with? In case i wasn't clear for the record, mine is cumaru.
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