Rosewood Table


lildesertwoodshop

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I am assuming he's talking about the small cracks in the end grain. Back when you could get Brazilian Rosewood, I used it on several projects and slight checking was the least of your problems. The highly colored wood comes from around a rotted heart, and most of it is full of cracks and rot. That's a nice piece. Good job.

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Yeah, what Troy said.  Checks freak me out because they can only get worse, especially in flat sawn areas near the pith like that.  I'll assume that was near the end of the board, but it's possible it could be case hardened and checked all the way through.  I had some leopardwood like that once...absolutely beautiful stuff, but checked all the way down the length of the board.  There's no way of telling when you're at the lumberyard unless they'll let you hack a piece right in half...which is highly unlikely.  I took the gamble and lost on that one.  It was checked so badly that it pretty much fell apart when I crosscut it.  It was relegated to the scrap bin but I use it for accents when only a small piece is needed.

 

When it's just the end of a board, I make sure to remove all of the checking, or at the very least fill them with epoxy so they're stabilized.  I'd almost rather change the dimensions of a project in order to eliminate the checks than leave them and take the risk of them getting bigger over the years.  Being in the desert you might be okay, but here in the midwest where humidity swings like my wife's moods, there's no way I'd risk it.

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I think Marc did a podcast where he recommended sawing through the middle of a pith to prevent cracking/splitting.  

Was it the recent picnic table build?

 

He had all of his rough lumber laid out after having sorting through the boards.

He shows a board with pith on the end and explained why it was a good idea to saw through the middle of it, through the board's entire length.

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He removed the pith on some boards for that picnic table he recently did on the free site.  But that was cedar or something...not quite the same as rosewood where you wouldn't want to waste any of it.  Best thing you can do is just avoid pithy boards while you're at the yard.

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