What are the most difficult woods?

[Trevanion]

I've seen a couple of topics lately asking "What are the easiest woods to work with?" which left me with the thought of "What are the most difficult woods to work with?". I'm curious to what people here would say as there's quite a diversity of hobbies on this forum that use a variety of different woods.

Of timbers I work with on a regular basis I would have to say Accoya (Radiata Pine) is possibly the worst I have to work with. It machines pretty well and it's a stable timber but other than that it's pretty terrible to use. It's very soft and it'll mark very easy and it doesn't take much to chip a large chunk off the timber if you bump it against something, it's a very coarse fast grown timber so occasionally you'll have pieces with 1 growth ring every half inch, which makes sanding it a nightmare as the large soft areas sand away much faster then the thin hard spots so when you go to paint it, it will look all wavy after paint. The process the timber undergoes makes the timber much darker on the surface with sticker marks from when it was stacked along the timber and lasts until about 6mm into the timber, which means if you want a stained Accoya door you have to buy larger stock to plane it down a lot to get clean grain without black stains. Working it with hand tools is an absolute nightmare, even with shaving sharp chisels it is very difficult to get a clean end grain cut without pulling chunks of timber out, hand planing the surface is a pain as well as it can be quite interlocked despite there being practically no grain to speak of. I think it must be one of the worst timbers for being dusty, even with decent extraction it produces a lot of dust when sanding and machining. The shavings and dust also seem to generate a lot more static than regular timber, I've noticed when hand planing it the shavings will statically stick to you and when doing anything that creates shavings like morticing the shavings will stick to the bit. I've also felt quite a bit a static coming from the timber itself as it's being power fed through machines, the friction between the bed and the timber seems to generate quite a bit of static, which is strange.

Of timbers I've only used sparingly, I think perhaps Mopane was the worst. It's absolutely hard as nails, it doesn't machine well at all and doesn't work by hand at all. I may as well have been working with stone. Definitely wouldn't use it again for anything.

 

[Keith 66]

Keruing is pretty horrid, hard & sticky with resin & the splinters always go septic.
Opepe usually used in groynes on the sea shore is a pig to work, I used some in a boat once for floors, hard as iron & heavily interlocked grain.
Then there is greenheart which is like trying to work iron only harder!

 

[Sgian Dubh]

Îpe (ee-pay). I've only it only two or three times, in both cases in small or limited quantities. Hard enough to destroy all edge tools as I recall, including planer knives, moulder cutters and drill bits. You get maybe two or three minutes of clean cutting with high speed steel planer knives before significant chips start appearing in the cutting edge, and maybe twice that long with tungsten carbide tooling, such as router bits. I destroyed twist drill bits the first time I tried to bore a hole in the stuff.

My conclusion was that I never want to work with it again, ha, ha. Slainte.

 

[Trevanion]

Then there is greenheart which is like trying to work iron only harder!

I used to have a lump of Greenheart in college that I used to use to challenge people to try driving a nail into it, many a bent nail occurred!

 

[Beau]

Never worked any horrors. Teak was brutal to the planer knifes and getting a decent finish on Wenge was tricky. Lignum vitae is the toughest wood I have used but only making mouths for wooden planes with it so not the most complicated job in the world.

 

[RobinBHM]

Accoya certainly is not a fault free timber it is made out to be.

Iroko is a challenge, boards can have loads of tension. Calcium deposits ruin cutters.

I tried movingue, horrible timber, wont be using that again.

Wenge and siberian larch -nasty splinters

 

[profchris]

I was given a lump of ipe that's too heavy to lift, and I thought it might make guitar fretboard. I took a slice off with a hand held circular saw, the only thing which would cut it, and discovered it was green wood so it curled up like a leaf. Currently it's role is as something to trip over -i might take another slice in a year or two, but I think this is unusable.

Western red Cedar is the opposite - planes and sands easily but dents if you sneeze near it. And I once made a whole uke from it, to see if it could be done, and it's too soft to carve nicely.

Yew is nice to work, but too difficult for me because the last time put me in A&E with a serious allergic reaction!

 

[mrpercysnodgrass]

Black Palm wood. Ok not strictly a wood it is the most difficult bloody awful stuff to work with but does look lovely when finished.

 

[MikeG.]

......I used to have a lump of Greenheart in college that I used to use to challenge people to try driving a nail into it, many a bent nail occurred!

Jarrah (from Australia) is the same. It's on the CITES list now, but reused sleepers are available. It's about as hard as cast iron, but can look beautiful.

 

[Distinterior]

A friend of my late father gave me a section of trunk that came from Australia....Apparently, it was used to make piles for jettys and as ballast in ships...! The weight of it is incredible.
It is about 200mm diameter and about 350mm tall and still has the bark on it. He did tell me what its name was, but I can't remember what it was. I have tried on many occasions to cut / drill it, but it is SO hard, nothing seems to touch it.
It has a deep reddish purple colour...?

I think I'd remember the name if someone can offer a suggestion..?

I was hoping to mount it on my lathe and turn a vessel out of it but it has far too much weight and mass for my little Record 36 SH, so if there are any turners out there that fancy having a go at this, let me know and it's yours. You would likely have to come and collect it though, as I can't imagine how much it would cost to post due to the weight....

Sorry Trevanion,...I didn't mean to hi Jack your thread.

Tim.

Edit. Mike has answered my question Jarrah wood.

 

[Trevanion]

Accoya certainly is not a fault free timber it is made out to be.

I had some 3" planks lately with some serious shakes within the timber, looked fine on the outside but inside it was full of cracks. I also very rarely have any 1" planks without splits, constantly have to glue them back together. The stuff I've been having recently has had a lot of stress in the timber as well, once ripped it tends to bend quite a bit.

 

[peter-harrison]

Southern yellow pine is horrible to work by hand. The winter grain is very hard, and the summer grain is very soft. The first time I used it, it was to make an umbrella for a Sadolin advert. I recommended it to the client as it had a very distinct grain which would show up well in the pics. I hugely regretted it as soon as I started work!