Most of my woodworking involves gymnosperms and occasionally angiosperms, both of which are dicots, but it is on rare occasion do I get to ‘work’ a monocot. I have repaired bamboo, reed, rattan, cane, even Tonkin cane but this is my first time with this grass. I own two artifacts made with palm wood, the large walking stick, a gift from a friend has a gilded brass knob, the tip is missing and the shaft is made of black palm. The other is a letter opener/ink erasure and it has a red palm handle, the blade is marked MILLER BROS. CUT. CO. MERIDEN. So the material was definitely used in the nineteenth century.
When I saw this stuff on sale at Woodcraft, I went out and picked up a nice piece 1 ½” square by 18 inches long, they had stuff longer to 24 inches, but I didn’t like the ‘grain’. Too bad they don’t offer it in 36 inch lengths for walking sticks. They advertised it as black palm wood, made me snicker because it isn’t a wood but is technically a grass. But it does work like any malicious wood.
Just handling the stuff is tricky; it tends to produce nasty slivers that catch on everything including skin. It is very hard, contains high amounts of silica, dulls tools quickly but is very strong and flexible. It has spots that are deadly hard next to spots that are not. It can have interlocking grain with wild eyes that can predominate the wood. Also the end grain has an unusual appearance in that it doesn’t have rings but bundles of ‘pores’ in uniform disbursement.
It does have a grain and it is possible to work against but it can cause some minor chipping, my limited experience is making the writing pen and I have roughed out some chopsticks after a recommendation from Mike Moore after he saw the pen. I had first thought that it might be too rough for chopsticks, but after working the pen, I decided to give them a try.
Starting out with rough square blanks I did some creative ripping to get the pieces to the size I need. After ripping down to near one end, I took the piece out of the vice, reversed the wood and saw and continued ripping up the piece until it was through. For the writing pen, I then worried a hole in the end, drilling end grain of palm isn’t easy the drill will wonder, start with a smaller size to get close to the center then enlarge the hole to the size needed.
Once I smoothed it with a Moxon smoother, I easily scraped it smooth. It was at that point that I knew the wood was tough as I could see chipping on the iron of the plane. It also quickly removed the burr from steel scrapers, but finished up shiny. I then burnished it with a bone burnisher, then finished with a couple of coats of linseed oil (waiting 24 hours between coats), then served the thread around the end. This got a coat of spirit varnish followed by another coat of linseed oil. I also stoved the pen to dry both the oil and spirit varnish. It will get a couple more of coats of oil before I am done.
Before I applied any finish I decided to raise the grain as I do when I work all woods, being a small pen, I licked it, well that was a mistake, fortunately I could spit but it took me a couple of hours to get that horrible taste out of my mouth. Very bitter, acrid and awful, don’t do this at home. I also started washing my hands after touching the stuff.
I will find some more utilitarian uses for this material, small tool handles, etc.
Today is also the 2nd anniversary of the Full Chisel Blog.
Stephen
Lac Bug
