mystery wood, but ya gotta love it.

allen levine

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new york city burbs
since I purchased this wood in march of 2009, gave small samples to people with lumber knowledge, and brought finished and unfinished to several lumber yards, no one has agreed on what type of wood it is.
Im not sure I care.
Im remaking the top for the coffee table in my back room. I didn't make a great top 5 years ago, and Ive always been unhappy with it.

isn't this wood beautiful?(second coat of waterlox, got a bit of way to go to get it where I want it)
 

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That's beautiful. Waterlox is one of my favorite finishes.

I've heard of lox and I've heard of water. BUT what is waterlox? Something like a left handed bagel?

Note: I was going to say, "left handed Monque wrench." However, I don't seem to know how to spell Mr. Monque's last name. So I looked up Monkey wrench in Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. They don't have Mr. Monque, HOWEVER, they have a nice picture of a pipe wrench with the title "Monkey wrench."

I guess I will have to quit monkeying around with this and get back to the shop.

Enjoy,
JimB
 
so off came the old top, and on went the new top. I had to attempt to fix up some scratches on the base, did my best. This coffee table is very abused, bottles, sodas, laptops, packages, its used, really used.
I noticed the second coat of waterlox gloss I used, I contaminated the brush or something, got a lot of small spots, spent a lot of time trying to sand and rub out.
I let it cure for almost a week, I tried some bowling alley wax, shiny, but not as perfect a finish as I hoped for.
Not sure what went wrong, but I think I contaminated it with dirt/sawdust .

nice figure in the wood.
 

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For the future, use a scraper to remove the contaminants. It will be a lot quicker. Using scrapers is pretty easy. Sharpening them takes some practice, so begin now.
 
it was my own fault, the containers I had are old and I thought I might have contaminated them last time. I don't know why I didn't toss the one can, one was fine.
we have the stop program here on LI, where you can dispose of paints/thinners/stains, etc........once a month in different locations.
I get lazy, I just store them, and forget they are no good.
this Saturday I get rid of al lof them since the stop program is close enough to my home.
if you toss them in the regular trash pickup and get caught, Im told its a nice fine.
 
the contractor I purchased it from said its been in his shop for years, it was leftover from a job he did and he just couldn't remember, but said he was sure it was some exotic wood from south or central America.(his passion was restoring sailboats, his warehouse had thousands of sq feet of mahogany, so I was sure the guy was into exotic lumber). He also restored a lot of brownstones in NY, and all the entranceways and windows in those homes are mahogany.

Some of it was knarly, twisted, warped, but at less than 1.00 a bf, I haven't had that much waste.
As Ive mentioned, I brought it to several lumber yards who specialize in domestic and exotic hardwoods, and I sent a piece to someone here to look at.
Noone gave me a definite answer.

my wife is thrilled with it. I get a free pass on this one because its been a rough couple of months around here, my head wasn't into woodworking.
 
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