end tables

Here's one of the two end tables I made. Doing things like this is what lets me keep making the guitars. It keeps the wife happy. They're made from sapele and zebrawood.

Sapele is one of my favorite woods to work with. There is no strong odor, it cuts like butter, sands up smooth & easy, there's no significant amount of chip-out when routing, isn't very heavy, and finishes up beautifully. It has a chocolate brown color similar to mahogany. It's often suggested as a mahogany substitute. For a while Cadillac was using it on their dashboards and other accents.

Sapele is also really cool in that it's all ribbon-striped, depending on how it's cut. One way and it's flat, almost maple-like in the grain. Rotate it 90 degrees and it gets a wonderful ribbon stripe that just glows with depth.

Zebrawood is starting to get some attention in woodworking circles. I love woods with a clear, distinctive grain, and zebrano fits the bill. It's not very fun to work with, though. It stinks, chips, tears out in the planer, is hard & dense so it doesn't cut easily, and it's heavy. So why would anyone want to work with such a PIA wood? Because it's so striking to look at.

I mean really... just look at that grain! Dark brown streaks in with the honey-tan background. The grain has for lack of better terms a sub-grain, like the grain of your carpet. But these sub-grains run in about 1" streaks that alternate directions. They shimmer with different reflective characteristics depending on how the light hits it. So yea, it just sucks to work with, but the end result is well worth the effort you put into it.