Man, is it yellow – and hard - and heavy. Over time the color will have mellowed, but I bet it will still be as hard. And heavy.I had no way to weigh it but my guess is that it’s something over a hundred pounds. The wood came from a tree that was east of Dallas. I’m southwest of Fort Worth and there is some Bois d’Arc here but for uniformity used only wood from the same tree.
I am mainly putting it on as an example of Bois d’ Arc...or Osage Orange…or Hedge Apple…or whatever you want to call it. One of these days I’ll post something that calls for some more intricate joinery…..if I ever do any.I had been wanting to actually make something from Bois d’Arc other than just putting in small pieces here and there in larger projects. We had some mainly bits and pieces of the tree as most of it went to make a bar top and I had the time so I decided to wear out some sandpaper and help dull some bits and blades.
The overall dimensions are 76” tall, 40 ½” wide top and 37 ½” wide and 11 1/8” deep carcase. The width was made to accommodate the shortest shelf I pieced together, which are dadoed a quarter inch into the sides. Shelves range from 11 ½” on the bottom to 9 ½” on top. Stiles are about 1 ¼” and the shelf rails are about 1 1/8”. I would have used wider stuff but went with what I could get that was left from this tree. In preparing the wood planing, sawing and routing are the same as anything else, although the router needs to be moved along as the wood can burn pretty badly. For sanding everything was dropped down a grit and was heavier duty. Rough sanding was 80 or 120 grit on a 4x24 belt sander, then to 120 on a 3x21 and then finally 120 on a ROS. Sanding was OK as long as the grit was pronounced but it wore down faster and when was at all worn didn’t do much. Finer than 120 mainly just burnished the wood. Pocket screws were used to put stiles on the sides, rails on the shelves and attach the top. The back is a little less than ½” thick and I counted 28 half lapped pieces which I cut to make it. I joined pieces halfway on shelf backs and attached them with 1 ¼” brads. For finishing a base coat of shellac was sprayed on followed by one coat of wipe-on varnish. As dense and close-grained as this stuff is that’s all that was necessary.
Yellow, ain’t it? You wouldn’t have it as a piece of furniture, would you? Tell the truth, I’m not crazy about it myself. Right now, anyway. But I’ve seen aged Bois d’Arc and after some time it turns to a really pretty golden brown. The room it’s in is not really bright so it doesn’t really stand out either. Now on to something a little less psychedelic.
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Seriously, I think it is nice and what's wrong with a little color here and there. Also, speaking of purple heart, from working with that wood I can imagine how hard your project was. Hat's off to you.
