Quina--Argentine Sandalwood--what is it good for?

[Matt Lau]

I stopped by Woodcraft on the way back from work.
Inside the turning block bin, there was this reddish block labeled "Quina--Argentine Sandalwood". It reminds me a lot of some lignum vitae that I'm hoarding (except different smell, color).

It's oily and heavy with moderately tight, interlocking grain.
The bonk tone is a bit dull and thuddy--I assume that it'll be murder on my tools.

Any tips on what to use it for?

Offhand, I'm thinking of the following:
+Mallet
+Knife handles (smells really nice)
+box liners
+baby spoons (not sure if it's toxic)
+some small, cool looking ceremonial thing--maybe netsuke or chopstick stands.
+palm chisel handle for a small EA Berg chisel.

I'd appreciate your input.
It was $2.50, so I don't think I'm out much if it's a dud.

I'm posting this in the neander section, as I'd like to make something neander with it.

[David Barnett]

Any tips on what to use it for?

Tools, tool handles, small decorative items, knife scales and so on.

Myroxylon peruiferum, Peruvian Balsam, sometimes called Santos Mahogany, to which it's related. Used for flooring, etc.

Quina in Argentina or Tolu (Myroxylon balsamum) in Colombia is moderately dulling on cutting edges but takes a high polish without finishes—you shouldn't need to oil the heartwood. I've seen it on cutting boards and other kitchen items but I'd probably not choose it for baby spoons unless they're intended for decoration rather than use. Smells nice but sandalwood it is not. Test whatever glue you choose before committing.

The bonk tone is a bit dull and thuddy...

In block form, yes, but it has been tried by luthiers as its tap tone when thinned can be promising.

[Winton Applegate]

Well I have had a real "thing" for one of these sandal wood paring chisels.
The photo does not do it justice. In fact I think the photo is just plain WRONG and is showing the ebony handled chisels. The sandal wood is a beautiful reddish brown.

I haven't acted on my passion. So far. I just gaze longingly at the paper catalog photo every time they send me a new catalog and try to get my fix that way.
But some day . . . sommmmmme day . . .
LOOK OUT.

[David Barnett]

Well I have had a real "thing" for one of these sandal wood paring chisels.
The photo does not do it justice. In fact I think the photo is just plain WRONG and is showing the ebony handled chisels. The sandal wood is a beautiful reddish brown.

I've seen Red Sandalwood chess sets and Red Japanese Sandalwood on Japanese cutlery but have never satisfactorily determined just which g. santalum this might be, if santalum it is, as Pterocarpus santalinus is also called Red Sandalwood. While the wood is lovely in appearance, it's the fragrance that does it for me. Not too long ago I saw a vial of 1930s Mysore sandalwood (Santalum alba) essential oil sell for several thousand £, which is a little too dear for me. I'd gladly settle for some Tamil Nadu (Pterocarpus santalinus) oil but that's still $274 an ounce. Even Australian (S. spicatum) or Royal Hawaiian (S. ellipticum) would do nicely, but they're pricey, too. Maybe one should just buy the pretty chisel and sniff the handle for the best bargain.

[george wilson]

I guess if they want $450.00 for a chisel with 100 year old wrought iron,that's their price. But,I might mention that ANY wrought iron we get around here is OLD. They haven't made it for a long time!! It comes from old bridges,fences,anchor chains and anchors,and other stuff that was made for resisting weather and salt water. I have some 1 1/2" round bars from a defunct light house fitting company.

There's nothing magic about it.

[David Weaver]

Me likey the sandalwood essential oil, too. Big time. I have 5 ml of it in a bottle waiting to be mixed into a batch of soap (5 pounds), but have no clue about what ratio should actually be used, so all of it, I guess.

And as to the many sandalwoods out there that are "fragrance" ....no. no, no. no, no, no. They are no better than staining tofu brown and calling it steak.

I quite like the smell of essential oil of tobacco, too, but my wife says it stinks. Old man smell. The smell of tabac and it's tobacco essential oil is so different than what we associate with tobacco (unless you've had the pleasure of smelling it fresh) that it causes a nose wrinkle when mentioned, but it's really lovely - just not in the lung-filling eye-crossing brain-neutralizing wonderfulness that comes with sandalwood. Such a smell could make someone float off of their toes like they used to do in the cartoons.

[David Weaver]

Well I have had a real "thing" for one of these sandal wood paring chisels.
The photo does not do it justice. In fact I think the photo is just plain WRONG and is showing the ebony handled chisels. The sandal wood is a beautiful reddish brown.

I haven't acted on my passion. So far. I just gaze longingly at the paper catalog photo every time they send me a new catalog and try to get my fix that way.
But some day . . . sommmmmme day . . .
LOOK OUT.

I have some of iyoroi's higher end kamaji chisels. They are good chisels, but $450 is the japan woodworker price, and it's very likely that chisel would be beaten by a simple ouchi paring chisel. I don't, however, have any iyoroi stuff in blue steel. I'm sure it's fine, but it's my opinion that the more I see of JWW, the more I'm offended by their listings and their askings.

[David Weaver]

I guess if they want $450.00 for a chisel with 100 year old wrought iron,that's their price. But,I might mention that ANY wrought iron we get around here is OLD. They haven't made it for a long time!! It comes from old bridges,fences,anchor chains and anchors,and other stuff that was made for resisting weather and salt water. I have some 1 1/2" round bars from a defunct light house fitting company.

Japan woodworker's listings have a habit of describing anything's "well, of course" virtues as being something special. Of course the wrought iron is old. There's nothing special about it and there's no shortage of it in japan. I have chisels that are white #2 steel instead of blue (iyoroi), but otherwise look identical to those and the wrought is nice to have as a backer on chisels as long as it's not too soft. But there's nothing special about it vs. anything else, unless you're trying to squeeze every last ounce out of the description of something that can otherwise be bought elsewhere for much less.

[george wilson]

They are always scrounging up old wrought iron at the blacksmith's shop in the museum. My friend Jon has a long section of 100 year(or older) wrought iron fence he uses as a source. I have a bunch of 1/2" square bars of wrought iron,buried in my large(tons) pile of metals that I keep inside my shop. Some guy bought it decades ago to make a genuine wrought iron fence around his porch. I think it must be the lowest grade stuff,because I actually have peeled off layers between the silica inclusions,with a pair of pliers. But,those silica inclusions are exactly what makes it resist rusting away to nothing: The air can't get through the silica layers.

I would not want to forge a gun barrel out of it,though!! Old gun barrels I have filed upon,made of wrought iron,are an entirely different grade. It files quite "dry",without clogging up the file all the time. They made different grades of the metal in the old days,really squeezing the silica out of the wrought iron intended for things like gun barrels. Today,we are stuck with what we can find. And,it is usually the low grade stuff used in weather resisting applications,like fences,etc..

[Winton Applegate]

There's nothing magic about it.

Well actually . . .
in theory . . .
there maybe (is).

And what might that be you ask.
Well as I understand it, and not having any where near the experience of many others here on Saw Mill (David) with high end Japanese blades . . .
the difference is . . .
. . .
impurities.

But these serve a function. The grit and junk in the iron, which is the largest percentage of surface on the stone when sharpening these high end blades WHEN SHARPENING A SINGLE BEVEL . . . well that grit and junk helps keep the pores of the stones open and keeps them cutting faster. A little on the order of taking the stone to a diamond plate, or using a nagura to clean the metal out of the pores.

Well that's the theory anyway.

PS: I just read your silica post. Sounds like you are winning my argument for me.
THANKS !

[george wilson]

Well,Winton,a lil' water or spit will keep the pores open too! Our old Dutch cabinet maker used a natural coticle that Woodcraft used to sell. He just spit on it and honed his Swedish chisel!! Beware of old stones you find in flea markets!!!

[David Weaver]

. .
. . .
impurities.

I have a complex migraine this morning, but I'll see if I can manage a coherent post......it's not the impurities that keep the stones clean, it's the softness of the metal. Mild steel, iron, or wrought iron - all will wake up and "clean" a natural stone without issue. I don't think the silica impurities in wrought do too much different.

The virtue of wrought in a chisel if it's chosen right is that it's supple and it's pretty. I think if a smith wanted to get good soft pure iron (not wrought) they could duplicate the former effect, but treating said non-wrought to iron wouldn't do much. As far as supple, it's safer in chisels to make the backer a little hard because they're going to have to endure more trouble (hammering, and possibly some abuse that shouldn't happen to chisels) than a plane iron. The loveliest plane irons, and good luck finding one without seeing it in person, are the ones where the maker chose the most supple wrought iron he could find and then stretched the lamination thin and made it of something that is easy sharpening. The combination feels borderline illegal when you're used to thick boutique all-tool-steel irons - you can manage such an iron with a medium and fine stone and never ever grind. You can also sharpen those even on oilstones, and the hardness of the laminated steel (limiting the depth of the abrasive penetration) and the dryness (limiting the formation of a wire edge at medium and high grits) of it makes them take an edge off of a couple of oilstones like you've never seen any modern alloy (like O1, etc) take.

My recoil has purely to do with a price that, in my opinion, is tasai territory, for an iyoroi chisels. Having found a set of the mokume chisels on discount, and knowing what iyoroi's work is like compared to ouchi, or especially the tasais or kiyohisa, I just think that iyoroi's expensive chisels are probably better for the vendor than the buyer - my opinion. An equivalent bench chisels would be about $130 from fujibato if he had them in ebony (they are $110 for white oak right now), so how you get from $130 to $450, I don't know.

[george wilson]

How the devil can you keep all those Japanese names in your head,David?????

I have trouble remembering "chisel" Usually I just grunt for tools.

In the musical instrument maker's shop,we had all these beautiful instruments hanging froim the ceiling around the shop. We wanted to don animal skins,and throu straw all over the floor. When the tourists came in,we'd be beating a piece of wood between 2 rocks.

[David Weaver]

How the devil can you keep all those Japanese names in your head,David?????

Repetition! At first, none of it stuck. Some of it does now. If it gets too far in (like stanley uses a lot of "local" terms), I start to lose track of what people are talking about. And if the stuff becomes something I have no experience with, I can't remember all of the japanese words, either.

[Winton Applegate]

I don't like to do it . . . but if that's the way it hast to be . . .

Oh . . .
. . . well . . . I see then . ..
ahhh . . .
I might be full of beans.
I mean . . . like . . . I didn’t have a Shokunin master teaching me woodworking in the traditional ways in Japan.
I didn’t get hit with a hammer (or the closest similar object) when I made a mistake or didn’t understand a command . . .
I didn’t hang with a bunch of Old dude real Shokunins everyday who were visiting with my master and get to hear their conversations etc. . . .
But
I read books by some one who has experienced all those things and wrote it down for those who care . . .

and so . . . I feel pretty SAFE in saying I can’t be too far off here.
I mean . . . my main man Toshio Odate doesn’t screw around like us.
He lived it.
He is it.
And he knows.

(photos of pages from this book in case yah allllllll wanna brush up)

I feel very fortunate to have learned some stuff from him and he has such a great sense of humor . . .
Thank You Mr. Odate !

Green stick in the green hole.
I believe that is check and mate.