That is the wood.
Hard, dense, grows moderately slowly. Pretty blue flowers on the tree, that
turn into a drop shaped orange seedpods.
Takes a while to cure. It is a hard wood to work, doesn't turn well except
with the sharpest of tools. Can be mechanically polished to a high gloss (only
scraping and rubbing, no chemicals or wax). Doesn't absorb anything very well.
A block in almost any shape will sink immediately if placed in water.
Has a hardness of more than 4000 on the Janka scale (oak is about 1800).
It is not the friendliest wood in the world to hand tools. But it has
tremendous stability and resistance to deformind under pressure. That is why
it made a good hammer head. That and it is almost as heavy as the steel in a
regular head.
Chris
*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********
On 2/8/2008 at 9:28 AM Angela Höfer wrote:
chris, is this the lignum vitae you are talking about?
(this is a babelfish-translation from a german site)
angela
Kind Hardwood
botanischer name Guaiacum Spp.
Guaiacum guatemalense
botanische family Zygophyllaceae
Occurrence South America, Central America and west India.
>From three species one wins, which from the southern Florida over of the
>Bahamas until the Jamaica, Cuba and west India, from Mexico over central
>America until Venezuela and Colombia to grow.
Protection of species agreement is subject to the commercial monitoring after
the which hanging toner. Retracting and extending must be approved.
Appearance Height to 10 m, diameters to 0,5 m.
Blackbrown - yellowish touched, split pin dark-yellow, darkgreenish-brown or
almost black also closely wechseldrehwuechsigem fiber direction and a fine,
even texture. Pores small, absent-minded. Increase zones not clearly.
Characteristics Darrdichte is on the average about 1200 kg/m³. Wood dries
slowly and heavily and is inclined to tearing. Works moderately, had in all
categories however outstanding values and a very high pressure strength.
Processing The wood is very hard, inflexibly and much heavyworks on. Unsuitable
to bending to work on and cut very with difficulty by machine. With difficulty
to stick, however polish assumes well.
Wood preservation Extremely age-resistingly and resistant to wood preservation
treatment.
Use Because of its self-lubricating characteristics for maritime purposes and
hydraulic engineering, furthermore for car wheels, guidance, castors, gear
wheels, balls, schlaegel, hammers, tools, textile industry
Specific gravity 1.20 - 1.40
Pressure strength 80 - 126 N/mm²
Bending strength 141 - 177 N/mm²
N. hardens Brinell
12% humidity H BII = 155 - 165, H BI = 90 N/mm²
German
* venezuelanisches Pockholz
English
* Lignum Vitae
* Verawood
French
* Gaieac
Netherlands
* Pokhout
* Vera Pok
********************************************
Am 07.02.2008 um 21:56 schrieb Chris Nogy:
The bearings are already prepared, Lignum Vitae (from my oldest stock, 4 pieces
that made up a shaft bearing in an old steamship. This wood is pressure, oil
and steam 'seasoned', and is tough and stable. I made a roofing hammer head
out of a piece, had to use metal milling equipment to make the hammer head, and
used it through a whole season of building a large addition on my parents
house. It was an amazing hammer - it is now the property of a close friend who
still uses it to this day.
I have some new Lignum Vitae on the shelves for not-so-critical projects, but
this one gets only the very best.
Was Lignum Vitae a European wood available at that time? I thought it was
indigneous to the West Indes, so at that time (The late 1300s - early 1400s in
Europe it probably would not have been known. I was thinking perhaps oil
soaked linden or ash, as both were strong and common woods of the time, might
have been used as bearings. I will use Lignum Vitae because it maintains the
spirit of the build, and I think that it will start out similar to what might
have been used, only maintain that standard longer.
Again, I am not going for the experience of being a medieval owner of a
medieval instrument. I want the sound experience, and I want to be able to
maintain that experience over time without a lifetime of mechanical maintenance.
Chris
