Anyone here turned some ovangkol?

[Odie]

.....also known as Amazique, Amazoue, Mozambique, Ovangkol, Shedua....from tropical west Africa.

From the description:

Workability: Overall a fairly easy wood to work, though Ovangkol contains silica and can therefore dull cutters prematurely. Also, if the grain is interlocked, or if there is other figure present in the wood, planing and other machining operations may be troublesome and cause tearout. Turns, glues and finishes well.

This is the second Ovangkol bowl/platter I've turned in the past year, and both of them were difficult to turn, and also difficult to sand......but, that's not what the description says about it! 😱 Unless I came across a piece that had some spectacular figure, I don't have much desire to do any more of this wood.

This piece is 11" in diameter, and was kiln dried. My meter had it at 12% MC........

 

[Bill Boehme]

Never heard of it, but looks like you did a great job of showing it who's boss. 🙂

 

[Odie]

Never heard of it, but looks like you did a great job of showing it who's boss. 🙂

Thanks, Bill........I was hoping to hear from anyone who had turned this wood, and hear that I was wrong about it not being "fairly easy" to work with. Usually "the wood database" has some good information, but I've got to disagree with that assessment!

ko

 

[Leo Van Der Loo]

I have heard the name Shedua or African Walnut on the Dutch woodworking forum, I’ve never seen or turned it for all I know.

Though the info said it has often silica in it and figured pieces can be difficult to work, it seems to go by several different names, like many that often are just invented by sellers as something new to buy 😵

Your piece there does look very nice Odie, sometimes we have to pay to get the good results with some woods 😱

 

[Odie]

I have heard the name Shedua or African Walnut on the Dutch woodworking forum, I’ve never seen or turned it for all I know.

Though the info said it has often silica in it and figured pieces can be difficult to work, it seems to go by several different names, like many that often are just invented by sellers as something new to buy 😵

Your piece there does look very nice Odie, sometimes we have to pay to get the good results with some woods 😱

Yeah, Leo.......The silica could be the reason. I had to sharpen my gouge many times, and there was a bunch of used sandpaper in the trashcan when I was finally done with it.......much more than usual. Maybe the sandpaper was dulled by the silica, too.....?

ko

 

[Zach LaPerriere]

I've never turned anything from that far away, except teak, but two things come to mind for me—that you probably already thought!

First, the wood database is highly subjective. I was given a US Forest Service publication on the machineability of woods. It placed red alder way above many favorite turning woods. I think this is partly because they were only considering center turning, and their criteria was presumably for mechanical turning, not turning by hand. But all those preloaded assumptions weren't put out there.

Second, and I mentioned this a little while ago here, some lots of woods seem to have way more silica in them, in the same species. I have a friend who's been spoon carving for near on fifty years, who is a wealthy of info from the hand carving side of things. He says some wood of the same species just works much harder. His theory on alder (again) is that some areas must have much more silica in the wood. He even mentioned trees from a particular area working harder than trees from another. And I'm now remembering a seasoned shipwright talking about how some purpleheart works much harder on occasion.

Sure a fine bowl/platter! The difficulty doesn't show one bit from here. 🙂