Sapele vs. Oak for beginner

[Bodgers]

Jeez - it's expensive here! (sapele).

I recognize it now, I think. Someone sent me a ribboned piece to plane once, and the surface was very fragile and difficult to plane due to the fragility of the wood in the ribboning. I was able to plane it to finish, but it reminded me of a softer version of quartersawn cocobolo, which is also a pain because of the weakness of the earlywood.

In the UK (at least in my part) it sits between Beech and European oak in price.

It's fairly affordable for hardwood.

I have a couple of pieces that I bought from my local hardwood place just to see what it's like.

One of the pieces is actually really nice looking - even without finish on it, the striped grain pattern has a superb sort of 3 dimensional affect.

I notice Darrell Peart uses a lot of Sapele in his Greene and Greene style furniture so there must be ways to deal with it.



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[D_W]

It appears to be about $8 or so here for plain 4/4 stock. In my area, market price for FAS cherry (unless you go to a retail establishment) is about $4. $8 is probably also about right for quartersawn white oak.

I've seen khaya locally in quantity, but not sapele, which is a shame. Local hardwood supply around here is very plentiful, which might make the market for imports not-so-great (thus higher price). I see wholesale port prices for khaya and sapele around $3 a board foot (with minimums around 1k board feet). Probably corresponds with the $7 to $8 dealer price.

 

[richarddownunder]

I think it depends on the look you want more than anything - they look different in so many ways and probably suit different projects. I've used sapele a number of times for clock cases and jewellery boxes and although it's a bit tricky to plane perfectly (compared with cherry, walnut or maple) it is a nice wood to work in other respects. Cuts and machines well, glues well, takes a good finish and looks a treat in the right circumstances. The stripes can be attractive or over-the-top and the angles of the stripes can give optical illusions of the item not being square if you don't plan it well.

I haven't used oak much but ash can be a pain as well as it can delaminate (if that is the right word...separate along the dark grain) in my experience when using a router...which probably isn't allowed on this part of the forum .

Hope that helps.

 

[ED65]

Besides, Sapele looks a bit dull and boring. Reminds me of cheap veneered furniture from the 70s! :lol:

Yes, the veneer on that was often sapele or something quite similar!

Photographs don't capture woods like this well. With the right finish on they are extremely lively in person, bags of chatoyance (cat's-eye effect). Sapele can indeed look absolutely dreadful with a dulled old finish on it, very drab and, well, brown.

Anyway, grain like this in easy-working woods like the mahoganyalikes is easily conquerable.

Is there a short answer as to how?

Yup. Using the cap iron on a bevel-down plane. Apologies to those for whom this subject has become a yawn, but there it is.

But say you can't plane it to an acceptable finish though (a few reasons why not) there's always scraping and/or sanding to fall back on; there's no shame in using them if and when necessary. After all some surfaces have to be sanded so we might as well get good at it!

And after finish has gone on you really shouldn't be able to tell the difference. Which is sort of how you tell you're good enough at it

 

[memzey]

I was happy with the way my wife’s medicine cabinet ended up I just hated working the Sapele! The constantly reversing grain wasn’t too hard to plane actually, sharpness of iron and correctly set cap took care of that. Rather it was the way that the reversals made paring the dovetails a nightmare, compounded by occasional crumbly bits, as the grain and consistency of that quarter sawn stock rarely worked in my favour. The chatoyance and look of the finished piece was exactly what I was going for though. On balance I’d say oak is harder and therefore delivers more resistance to your tools but nett nett is better to work (especially for a beginner or cackhanded oaf like me).

 

[D_W]

Rather it was the way that the reversals made paring the dovetails a nightmare, compounded by occasional crumbly bits, as the grain and consistency of that quarter sawn stock rarely worked in my favour.

I hear you on that.

That chatoyance that you mention is what I see in it, though. it looks excellent. I see above someone says that it doesn't necessarily keep that with age (alas, that's the case with lots of interesting woods. I had a blank of bois de rose and didn't know what it was, and made an infill plane out of it. It's so rare in large size that I never should've cut it, but I thought it was cocobolo. It made the most gorgeous reddish brown infills, but they've now turned dark brown over time. So much for that.

 

[Paddy Roxburgh]

Yup. Using the cap iron on a bevel-up plane. Apologies to those for whom this subject has become a yawn, but there it is.

Just to avoid any confusion, I'm pretty sure Ed meant to say on a bevel down plane, bevel up planes don't have cap irons.
Paddy

 

[ED65]

Yes I did mean to say bevel-down, thanks Paddy!

 

[ED65]

I was happy with the way my wife’s medicine cabinet ended up...

As well you might, it's gorgeous. If I may, it's a great contender for the newly established Finer Joinery & Cabinet Making forum =D>