Zikan wood

[flh801978]

Whats this Zikan wood that the vase that recently sold for a large sum was made of?

dont seem to be able to find any info about the wood

Ian

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... -150k.html

 

[Racers]

I have heard of Zitan wood http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pterocarpus_santalinus

Pete

 

[custard]

It's Zitan, an Asian wood that in imperial China was reserved for court furniture. When freshly cut it's an incredible dark purple/red, but I saw quite a bit in the Chinese National museum in Taiwan and after a century or two it ends up the same dark brown as most timbers!

 

[custard]

Incidentally, Karl Holtey used Zitan for one of his infill planes. Here's the link with some photos of the wood itself,

http://www.holteyplanes.com/blog/?s=zitan

 

[RogerP]

Once exposed to the light and atmosphere it will go dark and in some cases black.

.... so there doesn't seem to be much point if its beautiful colouring is soon gone. #-o