Wenge and Zebra wood for planes

[Matthew N. Masail]

I know this topic is probably way over posted... yes, I know, maple works fine. and I'll get some also, but I also want something denser for extra heft.


I'm going this Friday. there are only 2 very dense wood available in 8\4 stock unless they
have something new unlisted - wenge, and zebrawood. it's a special trip for me since I don't have a car and cannot just go whenever I want.


I'm leaning toward wenge but read it can be very splintery and hard to work. zebrawood seems better on paper but I like to look of wenge, elegant and exotic.
and I saw some nice planes made from it on.


I'd like to hear your experience and thoughts on using these woods, for plane or otherwise.

Thanks,
Matthew

[John P Lewis]

Wenge does love to shed splinters at a moments notice. Zebrawood is just stinky when worked. If you really like the looks of Wenge, just be careful and make sure to round over any area that would get touched. I'm not sure of the stability of these woods but both seem to work well enough for hard, heavy woods. Make sure to post pics once you finish your plane.

[Matthew N. Masail]

Thanks for the response John. I will have to see what planks they have. maybe I'll get both.

[David Weaver]

They might be OK for krenov planes or some laminated planes where you work them with power tools and then sand, but I'd avoid both for hand tools. Ideal wood for planes are stuff like fruitwoods, or maybe even olivewood if you could find some olivewood large enough there.

[Matthew N. Masail]

Thanks David. I make "traditional" planes but laminated with a cross pin. should I still avoid them?

I could just get hard maple... but I'd like more heft

[Steve Voigt]

A plane that is laminated and uses a crosspin is not a traditional (western) plane. Traditional planes are mortised and use abutments to hold the iron.
You can make a laminated plane out of whatever you want. The reason for avoiding exotics, especially coarse-grained ones like wenge, is the difficulty of digging a mortise out of such wood, while avoiding blowing out the mouth. In a laminated plane, these issues don't come up.

[Matthew N. Masail]

Hi Steve, that is why I said "traditional". I meant with a tote and all not a krenov shape. but I still do all the work with hand tools and a band saw.


I'm more concerned with the mouth chipping over time and such.

[Mark Kornell]

Matthew,

Here's a block plane I made from wenge with purpleheart. It was built as a laminated plane (but no crosspin). It is nice and dense for a small plane.
Mouse - 15 degrees.jpg

The wenge was fairly easy to work with and shape, but as mentioned, throws splinters if you look at it wrong. I wouldn't suggest wenge on the sole, however. Too porous-grained. Apart from being purple, the purpleheart make a good sole.

The porous nature of the wenge makes for a good grip.

[David Weaver]

Thanks David. I make "traditional" planes but laminated with a cross pin. should I still avoid them?

I could just get hard maple... but I'd like more heft

Steve alluded to the issue that I really don't like with those woods that are far different working than fruitwoods or some of the nice fine surfaced woods like boxwood, etc. Anything that's splintery will end up splintering at the mouth, at the top of the mortise, at abutments, on wedge parts, places on handles where you don't want them to, etc.

Sanding avoids a lot of that, but I wouldn't want to sand and breathe a whole bunch of unknown woods.

Rosewood, olivewood, etc, is where you want to go if you want more density. Look up the janka scale and pick something 2000+ if you want more density than maple, then go look at pictures of it. I don't love working a lot of those things. I would love to have a huge quartered piece of apple, but I think I already went through the only quality apple wood I'll ever see.

[maximillian arango]

I'd like to see you do zebra wood I think it looks awesome

197400-438x.jpg

[Brian Ashton]

Wenge is one of those woods I would avoid. It's brittle splinter reputation most likely indicates it doesn't have a good strong bond (If I remember correctly lignin is what holds the fibres together is wood) on a cellular level, hence the ease at which splinters spilt off. Could be very troublesome down the track as planes have to absorb a fair bit of stress when the wedge is driven home to hold the blade - the fibres might let go over time.

[Matthew N. Masail]

Ok so wenge is out of the question. but Mark that is a very VERY cool plane! I've seen it before and read the whole thing, very intresting, I might try it with a 1 1\2 inch blade.

David, I would LOVE to go rosewood or some other fine grain dense wood (osage orange is a dream) but they are not available here as far as I know, and no one
seems to know. it's not like I can just order a block of wood from amazonwoods . com or something... shipping is more than the cost of the wood.
I know what you mean about working with it, beech is fantastic... but unless it's a big plane with a big blade, it dosen't quite cut it (not intended ) .


no one said whats wrong with Zebra wood.. any problems with it aside from tearout?


so far I'm leaning towards hard maple and a dovetailed ipe sole, I've done that before, but its boring...

[James Conrad]

I would say yes to Zebra wood with one caveat, you will have to inlay a piece of tighter grained wood at the mouth as it will be brittle at the sharp points of the mouth.

[David Weaver]

One thing nobody has said yet is that zebrawood really isn't that dense. It's probably similar in weight to maple, with one or the other being heavier depending on how dense a particular specimen is.

I've made a couple of small things out of zebrawood, hoping it would be like some of the denser tropicals (and not knowing it wasn't) and wasn't a real big fan of it.

[Matthew N. Masail]

huh...... ok.... lol

I hope they have some 2 1\2 inch thick maple there... if they do and it's desns I'll make some more traditional size planes with it.

maybe they will have somthing unexpected... here's hopein'....