Anyone work with Palm wood?

deweyrf91 · #1 05-31-2006, 04:29 PM

I bought a block of Palm wood not long ago and was wondering if anyone else has worked with this stuff? It has the most incredible coloring, especially the end grain. However, it is light in color with lots of dark specks in it. As it turns out, the light coloring is very soft and the dark specks are very hard. Makes for difficult carving!

J Wardwell · #2 05-31-2006, 07:16 PM

deweyrf91,
It's pretty hard to carve with a knife. I know a few people that carve that stuff out here in California, and they use power.

deweyrf91 · #3 05-31-2006, 07:45 PM

Yep, I used my foredom rotary carver on it and still was very difficult to carve. The dark pieces seemed to chip more than sand away, and the light wood was very soft. I think the end grain would make beautiful veneer!

wade clark · #4 06-01-2006, 12:24 AM

They carve tikis out of them with chainsaws. That's the only thing I've ever seen carved out of them.
Wade