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Any special issues with gluing purple heart...?

D

Doug Rasmussen

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Just wondering if there might be resins in the wood or other issues that would affect gluing.

This weekend I came across assorted purple heart remnants at a closing sale of a long time boat yard specializing in wooden boats/ yachts.

I missed the best deal by a couple minutes though. That was a 6+" x 6+" by 12 feet long purple heart for $75!!! And, almost the worst part was the guy who got it wasn't a woodworker, he said he was going to trade it to a friend for instruction in woodworking.

The reason they had the purple heart was they'd built a keel for a largish sailboat of it (??).
 
Not that I know of. I glued a lot into my hand mirrors or as additions in segmented work. I've used both yellow glue and epoxy with no problems that I can remember.
 
I can't speak for household use, but in marine use: purpleheart is known to fail the best efforts in gluing. System 3 makes a special line of epoxy called T-88. My shipwright friend was recently saying it's as bad as teak.

Additionally, purpleheart takes a LONG time to fully dry. If the end product is to go indoors, I would recommend drying the wood indoors for a long time and weighing pieces over weeks before gluing. If the glue-up is subject to large moisture fluctuations, it will likely crack or possibly fail at the joint.
 
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Thanks John and Zach. Coincidently, late this afternoon after this posting I ran into one of the guys from the boat yard.

He said they used epoxy after wiping down the glue lines with acetone or denatured alcohol. He didn't have any opinions on other glues since their application was strictly for marine use. The reason for purple heart was it was the only affordable beams they could find in the 18 foot lengths they needed for the keel. The other option was teak which was too expensive. I asked if the purple heart was dry, he really didn't know, but assumed it was.
 
Used to get a lot of Purple Heart in the scrap bins around Annapolis.
Bowl size pieces were rare but lots of spindle stock.
Makes great tool handles. It doesn’t keep the purple color. Turns a sort of brown but still nice.

They used Purple Heart to replace the rotted white Oak beams in the restoration of the Constellation, the sister ship to Constitution.
 
hockenbery said:
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It doesn’t keep the purple color. Turns a sort of brown but still nice.

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When I was picking the remnants I thought about half of what I got was mahogany since it was brownish rather than purple. Nope, it's all purple heart. They called it "sun burned".

Do you suppose any of the UV resistant clear finishes would preserve the purple color?
 
Doug Rasmussen said:
Do you suppose any of the UV resistant clear finishes would preserve the purple color?
Click to expand...
I have used UV inhibitors and they will slow the color change in red box elder but they don’t stop it.
Haven’t used UV inhibitors on Purple Heart.

I try to avoid using wood color that will change as a feature.
Curves, white sapwood, Strong grain paterns, natural edges, voids are features that last.

I’ve used some as finials for Christmas ornaments. With a holly ball it will look nice when the color changes.
 
With all this talk of purpleheart, thought it would be fun to post pictures from last year of a purpleheart timber my shipwright friend Mike asked me to chainsawmill on site. I took 2" off both sides. As you might be able to read, the timber was a 12X18X16. 1800 pounds.

The timber became a new bow stem in a 50" seiner, a salmon fishing boat.

I turned a couple bowls from scraps and unlike the majority of purpleheart I've put on boats, this had some fine curly grain.

IMG_2304.jpg IMG_2424.jpg
 
Zach LaPerriere said:
With all this talk of purpleheart, thought it would be fun to post pictures from last year of a purpleheart timber my shipwright friend Mike asked me to chainsawmill on site. I took 2" off both sides. As you might be able to read, the timber was a 12X18X16. 1800 pounds.

The timber became a new bow stem in a 50" seiner, a salmon fishing boat.

I turned a couple bowls from scraps and unlike the majority of purpleheart I've put on boats, this had some fine curly grain.

View attachment 27419 View attachment 27420
Click to expand...

What was the name of the boat it went on (if it was a local one?)

My wife and I used to live in Sitka.
 
Davis Stevenson said:
What was the name of the boat it went on (if it was a local one?)

My wife and I used to live in Sitka.
Click to expand...

Hi Davis,

I'm sorry my memory is failing me. It's a big broad seiner from Kake. Sage Lady or something like that. A later vintage wood seiner, stout as can be for wood. My apologies for the poor memory.

Did you live on a sailboat in Sitka? Again: my memory is playing tricks on me. :)
 
Zach LaPerriere said:
Hi Davis,

I'm sorry my memory is failing me. It's a big broad seiner from Kake. Sage Lady or something like that. A later vintage wood seiner, stout as can be for wood. My apologies for the poor memory.

Did you live on a sailboat in Sitka? Again: my memory is playing tricks on me. :)
Click to expand...

I lived in town. If you ever made it up to the Raptor Center in 2015-2016 or so, you probably met my wife or myself. Especially in 2016-- we were short staffed so my wife and I were literally the only ones on the bird rehab/handling crew that summer. I don't think I know any of the salmon seiners offhand, but if you know any of the gillnetters and trollers in town we probably have some friends in common.
 
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