Knowledge You Can Build On — Est. 1998
PALM WOODS
Jim King-Iquitos,Peru
>Since my comments about Black Palm on this site and another I have received several emails. Today we had three types of palm woods in the shop so we scanned them for everyones general information. There are many types and colors-patterns of palm wood but most on ebay and other sites are lumped together under a couple of names I suppose because the seller does not have a good knowledge of what he is selling.
Re: PALM WOODS
Mark Kauder. Phenix City, AL
>Jim,
Very Cool. Wish you were closer so that we could trade wood. I have worked with Black Palm quite a bit, and like it, though it takes time to get used to.
The others look cool, too. Do the turn about the same?
The only other palm besides Black Palm that I have ever heard much about is Red Palm.
Thanks for Posting.
Mark
Re: PALM WOODS
Jim King-Iquitos,Peru
>Mark: I am only familiar with South American palms but they all are hard and difficult to work with, if the color and grain were not different you would think they were the same when working them.. A large peice here is two inches thick and the biggest use is for flooring. We make chess sets out of the black palm and use white tagua nuts for the other half of the set. I will attach a photo to show how it grows. The outer layer is the hard part and the inner part of the tree is like a sponge which you can pull out with your hands contrary to a normal tree.
Re: PALM WOODS *LINK*
Mark Kauder. Phenix City, AL
>I had heard about the fact that the outside is the hard part.
I use it as an interesting contrast in my Segmented work. You can see it in the Cherry bowl on this page of my website, in the feature rings, and the rim.
I alway tell people that it is like turning styrofoam with metal shavings in it. The dark fibers are hard as heck, and the lighter colored stuff is soft. Then you sand, it leave a texture to the surface, unless you stablilize the softer part with CA or something.
Thanks for the pictures.
Re: PALM WOODS
Don Thompson - Cutler Ridge, Florida
>Would you happen to know the latin botanical names of those three species?
Re: PALM WOODS
Jim King-Iquitos,Peru
>Don: The botonist I use in in Costa Rica for a workshop for a few weeks but if you remind me in a month I will get them for you.
sorry to be technical
Tom Sontag - St. Louis
>I do not have the latin names handy, but everyone here knows that palms are technically grass family members and not trees right?
Re: PALM WOODS
Don Thompson - Cutler Ridge, Florida
>Thanks. My wife has a lot of palm references, and I would like to look up the ones you showed to learn more about them, and perhaps how they relate to some of the local and/or imported palms grown here. I have learned enough from her to know that the common names vary greatly with locale, so I had better use the latin names.
