Purpleheart

Last year I took my 7 year old son with me when I went lumber shopping. The Carpentry Store in Kildare is open Saturday mornings. They have a far better wood selection than anywhere local to me. Saturday mornings usually have something else going on, so making the trip is a bit of a treat for me. I picked up some maple, some walnut, a nice large board of yew. My 5 year old spotted the Purpleheart and was fascinated with it. He insisted it come home with us. I had no particular need of it. The board was about 3 feet long, 8 inches wide and 2 inches thick. It had a large crack running down the centre and was pretty cheap as a result. I bought it just to make him happy, and its been sitting in a corner of my workshop ever since.

My 11 year old daughter has been developing a fascination with crochet and knitting. She saw a Youtube video of a frame loom and asked me to make one for her. The Purpleheart’s time has come.

I’ve used very few exotic woods in the past. Purpleheart has taken a bit of getting used to. First off, the purple colour is only skin deep. The first time I cut into it, I was shocked when the cut surface was a muddy brown rather than purple. I had just assumed the colour ran all the way through. The good news is that after a day or two of oxidation, the purple comes right back to the surface.

I’m told that if left in sunlight, the purple will fade to the internal muddy brown. The silver lining of my shop having no natural light is that this is not something I’ll have to worry about until its done. I’ll finish this in some marine varnish with UV protection. Hopefully that will keep it purple forever.

Purpleheart is tough. Breaking down the board took a long time with a handsaw. After sawing out the first piece. I took time out to resharpen my rip saw. That helped and sped things up, but not a lot.

Planing it is tough. I don’t know if its all Purpleheart, or just my board, but there is a lot of reversing grain. This made dimensioning a pain. Any plane that could take a heavy enough cut to make decent progress tore out like crazy. Bullet wound level tear-out. Anything that didn’t tear out was taking too fine a shaving to finish the work in this lifetime. The best compromise plane for the job turned out to be my Spiers infill panel plane. It could take a reasonably thick shaving. It still tore out here and there, but only to a shallow degree. What’s left will come out easily with a card scraper as I finish up the project.

So dimensioning proceeded with a record number 5 with a heavily cambered blade doing the very rough work, and then the panel plane taking it down to final dimensions and getting the stock square.

Its hard timber. Planing it all down was a workout. Purple heart also generates long vicious splinters. Don’t run your hand over a board without care. I’m going with lap joints for the frame. I’ve never cut lap joints before and I have a shiny new router plane I want to test out. That will add a bit of fun to the project.

Ripping and re-sawing this board was quite the workout and slow going

Which prompted me to break out Phil Gaynor’s saw vice to give it a touch up. You are missed Phil.

The Spiers infill gave a nice compromise between not tearing out much, while being able to take a thick enough shaving to make good progress.

Check out the left and right sides of the workpiece. Where the plane has hit, its brown, the low spots are still purple. Purpleheart’s purple is just skin deep. You can also see a mix of colours in the shavings.

I’m aiming for roughly 1 inch square stock. It will probably be a little under when I’m done. Exact size is not important as long as its all the same.

Stock prepped for the main frame. There are a few other pieces for a Heddle bar, shuttle and comb. Next up will be the lap joints.