Can this wood be saved? Dramatic gasp

[evansd2]

@celesteprobichaux

best advice

I hate to have to give it, because it’s a pretty wood. It just is very hard to cut and chars like crazy.

It might engrave nicely if you had a precut piece, but I haven’t tried that… but cutting was just not working out for me.

Previously in evansd2 vs sapele:

Has anyone been cutting 0.37-0.40 material?

Yeah Sapele is a straight up jerk.

Wood species to avoid

A quick list of wood species that I find to be too difficult to cut to be worth the trouble: Zebrawood (chars, inconsistent) Bolivian Rosewood (too hard, takes too many passes and chars) Ironwood (aka ipe) (similar to the rosewood, it takes many passes. It doesn’t char though, but gets a hard black polymerized edge.) Black palm (I believe this is stabilized, and so my problems were probably due to the resin content. Either way it was very difficult and not recommended) Sapele (th…

Inlaid valet tray

That piece was from Green Valley Wood Products, and it is a walk in the park to cut compare to sapele. I’d put it more in line with walnut, a bit tougher than maple, much easier than heavy exotics like purpleheart. Sapele/rosewood/bubinga/cocobolo are all in the “ugh” category, they are awesome but very hard to cut.

(and a few others)