Jacaranda From - And For - The Neighbors

Vaughn McMillan

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This is some wood I got from the neighbors down the street, who were doing a major trimming of their jacaranda tree. I got several chunks of this stuff, and this is the bowl I made to give them in return for the wood. Jacaranda is pretty soft and light, is very stable and fast drying. It's a bit tricky to get nice clean cuts with it, but when the gouge can't do it, the sands easily and quickly.

The finished bowl is about 10" long and 6" wide. Finished with Antique Oil and buffed. Many of the pieces from this tree have a slight bit of curl, but otherwise it's pretty plain wood.

Bowl 060 - 01 800.jpg Bowl 060 - 02 800.jpg Bowl 060 - 03 800.jpg

The neighbors loved it, BTW, They had not seen any of my work before, and I don't think they were expecting anything quite like this when I promised them a bowl a few months ago.

Comments and critiques are always welcome -
 
Thanks, Mark. The grain is similar, but the color is lighter...almost white before I put the oil on it. It'll be interesting to see if it darkens over time like cherry. The wood is also much softer and lighter in weight than cherry. It's pretty porous, but the pores seem to close up nicely with sanding. The air nozzle on the inside blew the real fine sanding dust through the outside walls, to give you an idea how porous it is. I was still able to pull about 20 in/Hg with my vacuum pump, though.
 
Another nice one Vaughn! A guy I know showed me a bowl he made from Jacaranda, and like you said, the grain was rather plain, but the wood had a really nice chatoyance, which looked real cool, can't tell from the pics if yours have that or not, but a very nice bowl regardless, bet it's fun to blow away people who have never seen your work!
 
Thanks guys. :)

Jeff, the bark was remarkably firm and held on well. I've got some more NE bowls in progress with this wood, and all have been similar in regards to the bark. There was one little chunk on this one that I had to rebuild with spare bark and CA, and when I gave it to the neighbor I was unable to find it to show him.

Barry, you're right about the chatoyance. It's kind of subtle, but it's definitely there.
 
I guess it doesn't matter for a bowl, but I recall from my 28 years living in SoCal, that Jacaranda is very brittle. Branches would snap off at the slightest provocation - or during the Santa Anas. Never tried woodworking with it, but sure cleaned up a lot of it off the ground.

They oughtta be in bloom about now - Beautiful, aren't they? Cleaned up a lot of purple aftermath from the blooming too, come to think of it - but then, purple is your favorite, right?
 
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