lignum vitae bitt

[helvit]

I'm going to use part of a 75 pound block of lignum vitae a friend is donating to the cause to make two cleats and a mooring bitt for a 20' outboard skiff nearing completion.

The searches leave three open questions: there are couple of undisputed posts that mention "checking if not waxed"; there is another which says poor rot resistance at the cut end; third is how to finish for this application.

Learning a lot here, long way to go. Thanks.

[Bob Smalser]

Checking is more a function of grain and moisture content than species...post an endgrain pick of this block...which is probably pretty wet....and can recommend how to cut and dry it.

And get some heavy paste wax on the endgrain in the meantime.

[ 09-13-2003, 11:39 AM: Message edited by: Bob Smalser ]

[helvit]

OK, Bob-- I'll post it when I get it.
But it'll be dry-- bought and stored dry 20 years ago, I'm told.

[ishmael]

Hmm. To have a chunk of LV is a rare thing. My inclination it to set it in a tub of anti-freeze for a year. Seriously.

I don't know how prone to checking it is. Bob's wrong on this, it varies specie to specie.

How long has it been out of the tree?

Ya better have your carbide sharpened when you cut into it. :D

[Bob Smalser]

Ok, but I said "more"...not "exclusively".

It may be "dry", but to minimize the potential for checking you've got to let the hunks you cut out of it...which are always wetter on the inside than out....stabilize gradually to the environment of the shop (if dry) or outside (if wet). A month or so should do it...more if you've the time....and keep the endgrain heavily waxed.

Tain't the moisure content that's critical...it's the differentiation of M/C in the piece you cut that makes it more prone to checking than normal within the species....and even a 20 year old block will likely have significant variation....and the denser the wood and the more oil...the slower to dry and the greater the tendency. The natural oil don't help, either, so I'd lean toward waxing the whole fresh-cut hunks, with more wax thickness on the end grain.

What I wanted to see is whether it has heartwood or not....and how sound any heartwood is. A sampson post or loggerhead could include the heart providing the heart is both sound and dead center of the post.

For cleats, I'd want the grain to be as straight as possible and to run from top to bottom of the cleat in the vertical dimension.

And it's an extremely oily wood that used to be used alone for shaft bearings, so I'd just keep it waxed.

[ 09-13-2003, 03:50 PM: Message edited by: Bob Smalser ]

[Dave Fleming]

LV if truly 20 years aseasoning should be pretty dry.
Problem is when you open it up there may be a tendency to crack or split. Plus the possibility of grit pockets is to be considered.

It is gonna be hell on edged tools and is best cut with a good bandsoar and have several blades on hand. don't try cutting it on a 10 or 12 inch soar, a 20 inch or bigger is best. Best of all would be a DoAll or Grobe multispeed but they are not found in your usual woodshop.
<insert grin here>
We used it for stern bearings on ocean going vessels and when cutting on the BS. the sparks would fly all over the place if you hit one of those grit pockets.
If you try and cut it on a tablesoar with even a carbide blade that damn grit will take the edge off of it in a flash.

Make some templates of your proposed pieces and try to envision the best usage out of the hunk of LV. Just as if you were a diamond cutter.

Then make the cuts and quickly seal the cut surfaces with parafin wax well rubbed in.
Carnells **tonic** won't even touch the LV!
Too damn dense to penetrate the LV.
To prevent checking we kept the LV baulks in a big tub of water where they promptly sunk to the bottom.

Take your time, layout what you are after and then proceed carefully.

[ishmael]

This brings a memory I have to try and capture.

When I was a college student the school had a January inter-term, with various classes and trips. One trip i took in my freshman year was an ecological tour of Florida. We camped about, and saw much of Florida's glory.

One stop, which we weren't told of at the outset, was a boat trip to Lignum Vitae Key . We motored up, and were met with cameras from one of the Networks. They kept saying, "Don't look at the camera, don't look at the camera." My mug finally made the nationals!

They followed us around, and we were on the national news that night. It's a very interesting preserve; at the time under heavy state fire because the old couple, who'd lived there for ages, were being chased off. Another story.

Anyway, this key had the oldest recorded Lignum Vitae tree in the Carribean basin. The place was full of Lignam Vitae. The largest, which we saw, was about ten inches DBH.

I wish I could remember his name, of the couple, but he told me a story. They were conchs. Pronounced conk. I asked him if he'd ever run in to Earnest Hemingway. He laughed and said yes. He said Hemingway was scheduled to box a big nigger(his words), and when the man stepped off the boat Hemingway cold-cocked him.

Trust story about that much.

[ 09-13-2003, 04:07 PM: Message edited by: ishmael ]

[ishmael]

What's not to understand Dave?

[ishmael]

The question at hand has been answered, well. You don't want me to tell a story? I can't help myself. It's not often I've been standing next to the oldest Lignum Vitae tree in the world, on national TV, but I did once. What's wrong with the story?

I did tell the DBH. It may have been twelve inches. These suckers grow really, really slow. That tree was a half a millenium old. Patiently, as the Americas were conquered, patiently while the war raged it just grew on that key, which on the day I was there had become a celebrity of sorts.

Give me a break. I know a little, don't know a lot, and rarely Lord it over the difference.

[Dave Fleming]

Ah so, it was story telling time!

<insert rolled eyed face here>

A fact, LV is now a banned specie for importation into the USA.

Yes the trees are very slow growing and, if memory serves rarely grow taller than 20 feet or so.

[ishmael]

Every time is story telling time. Why not? It came out in my story that the LV lumber this man has is rare, should be cherished. That's enough story for me.

They used to make prop bearings for ships out of the stuff. Something about it's hardness and oilyness. They don't do it anymore. Is that out of bounds, because it's story?

[ 09-13-2003, 03:56 PM: Message edited by: ishmael ]

[NormMessinger]

To further hijak this thread: What would you (whom ever you choos to be) consider the best and highest use of a chunk of LV to be?

I got a piece a while back, about 4 x 4 x 14" or so. When I saw it in the store the price was marked on the order of 40 or 50 bucks. I was thinking of making shieves from it. When I finally convinced myself that I wanted to make LV sheaves and went back to buy it to propriator looked at the price tage on it, figured there must be some mistake, a piece of wood couldn't be worth that much and sold it to me for $30 I think it was. I have it but can't bring myself to cut in to it. Bought Schaefer sheaves. So now what?

[ishmael]

Norm,

I'll ignore the hijack barb, 'cause I don't think I did.

I can't think of a good use for LV. It could be used for cleats, as discussed, but there are better woods. I don't know the answer to your question. I have a very nice mallet with a LV head. It makes a good mallet.

[ishmael]

Yes.

[Donn]

Norm...how 'bout a mallet?

[Dave Fleming]

O&O East

how 'bout a mallet?Fer what use?

[Donn]

Poundin' stuff!

[Dave Fleming]

Ok but it would be a dead blow type of thing.
No life in the wood as a mallet though I believe the Brits use it for corking mallets, ugh.

I would put rings on each striking end to keep the splintering and chipping off down to a minimum.

Just turn the ends for about an inch or so and heat a couple of large pipe cutoffs ( from your friendly neighborhood plumbing supply place ) and slip over the turned down ends, dunk in H2O to shrink in place and you should be good to go.
Parrifin wax all exposed surfaces except the striking faces to keep movement down.

[Donn]

He's only got 4x4 stock. That wouldn't make a very big round head mallet. I was thinking about something like this:

http://images.antiques.goantiques.com/dbimages/GGB1347T1934AN.jpg

Fer chisels and gouges.

[Donn]

Or, you could carve a really cool croquet mallet out of it. That woud be dandy.

[ishmael]

It does make a nice mallet. Nuthin' like it, really. It's one of the few woods that sinks, it's that dense.

Fer poundin' stuff.

[Ed Harrow]

Originally posted by Dave Fleming:
[QUOTE]...NOW a big worry is that some nimrod not knowing that there is work going on in the shaft alley will start the shaft turning from the wheelhouse.
...Nimrod??? Noah's great grandson? A hunter and king? LOL, you're only the second person I've known to use the term nimrod, and in the same way yet. You're in good company, however. Frank was one of the smartest I've had the pleasure of knowing.

[Mrleft8]

I wouldn't make cleats out of it. It's too rare a wood for that. I wouldn't make a mallet out of it, I already have a Lignum Vitae mallet (I've had it for 20 years and it hasn't split yet). I think the best use might possibly be a sculpture. A 3-D carving of something or other....

[rbgarr]

I've got a piece that's about 20"x 5"x5" that's about 25 years old and 'encased' in paraffin wax. I think I'll be using it a bit of it for making a masthead truck (?) for a flagpole I'm planning and maybe some deadeyes. I'll already got an LV mallet.

Thanks for the cutting blade tips.

[Bob Smalser]

Mallets are easy to make from scrap and, to me, totally expendible.

http://pic3.picturetrail.com/VOL12/1104763/2594266/31846157.jpg

I'd use it for something more permanent and showy...I like the cleat and bitt idea....or outside handles and knobs.

[Dave Fleming]

Hey Bob, you been reading Eric Slone again?

<insert big grin here>

[Mrleft8]

Originally posted by Bob Smalser:
Mallets are easy to make from scrap and, to me, totally expendible.

http://pic3.picturetrail.com/VOL12/1104763/2594266/31846157.jpg

I'd use it for something more permanent and showy...I like the cleat and bitt idea....or outside handles and knobs.If those are your mallets, then I understand why you consider them expendible. A good mallet, like any other good tool, should be well made, well balanced, and treated accordingly. You have there the "Yugo" of mallets. Get yourself some "Mercedes", or even "Subaru" quality mallets, and you'll (hopefully) not want to destroy them so quickly. You might also try round mallets. Those wonky square head things are impossible to balance, leave nasty triangular divets, and tend to split....

[TimH]

I bought one of those round brass mallets from the Garrett-Wade catalog...it was $60, but I splurged..now they dont sell-em anymore. I wonder why. Its a Calvo, probably has something to do with David Calvo, an "extremely skilled woodcarver, on Cape Ann in Mass".
Here is the mallet:

http://www.whidbeyranch.com/calvomallet.jpg

I am using it to help me in building this:

http://www.whidbeyranch.com/shop.jpg

So I can build one of these:

http://www.redfishkayak.com/wavro1.3.jpg

and another one of these:

http://www.instantboats.com/images/htbtgld150.jpg

:D

[Donn]

They still sell them:

http://www.garrettwade.com/images//product/family/18R0301.jpg

Garret Wade (http://www.garrettwade.com/jump.jsp?lGen=detail&itemID=104297&itemType=PRODUCT&iMainCat=0&iSubCat=0&iProductID=104297)

[TimH]

weird...I just looked in the catalog and didnt see em.....must have missed them. kinda like I missed the road to riches a long time ago smile.gif

[edsr]

About 30+ years ago I had a nightstick made of LV. It was the "Times Square" model being about 26" as compared to the "regular" nightstick of 22">24". It served me well for a few years and you didn't have to worry that it would become brittle like Rosewood. It seems a terrible waste now but didn't then.

edsr

[helvit]

so, if you were leaving your lv stuff out in the weather, how would you finish it?

[edsr]

A nightstick made of LV doesn't need any lead for weight and the balance is not upset or top heavy. Anyway there was plenty of lead in yer blackjack should you need it. Hell, those things are probably not even legal for cops to carry anymore. Coney Is. and Red Hook -- been there done that! I'd rather catch fish and build a boat now and then.

edsr