Storing snakewood

**Basschair** · #1 03-14-2007, 10:11 AM

Hey all,

I'm in the process of ordering my first piece of snakewood for building, and have a question for those of you who have used it before:

Are there techniques for storage that will prevent cracking, checking, etc., or is it just inevitable that most pieces will do so no matter what?

Larry Davis · #2 03-14-2007, 12:30 PM

Paul, the single most important advice is BUY DRY WOOD!!! I can not emphasize this enough. Most snakewood is sold as log portions that will not dry in an adults lifetime (only slight exaggeration here). It comes layered in heavy coats of wax which does stop checking and cracking until it gets to the consumer, but does not allow it to begin the drying process until the wax is removed. Look for sawn, dry lumber pieces and get a committed moisture content from the supplier.

Snakewood is a difficult, cranky wood to work because it's cells are full of tyloses which makes it very stiff, dense prone to heat check if sanded to fast or drilled to quickly. Because it is not very flexible, it can crack if drilled without cleaning out the drill hole frequently. Snakewood can be milled following some good woodworking practices developed by the custom knife makers. All that said, the rewards of a finished piece of snakewood is sexual...or not...

Snakewood is not preferred for modern bows because of it's stiffness. It is used mainly for baroque bows.

Musiclogic · #3 03-14-2007, 12:52 PM

Hey Larry, will your acrylizing process "take" on snakewood, or is there any way to really stablize it. I have always wanted to use some but the checking has always steered me away from it. This has been a question I have waned to ask someone for 20 years...LOL

Larry Davis · #4 03-14-2007, 02:55 PM

It does, but doesn't take on much weight because there isn't much empty cell structure in snakewood. I've had snakewood check after processing, but I'm not sure there were not tiny hair cracks in the wood before processing. Snakewood must be absolutely dry and crack free before processing which makes it pretty scarce.

**Basschair** · #5 03-14-2007, 03:23 PM

Thanks for the advice Larry!

The piece I'm looking at is a plank, cut to about 3/4"x 5 1/2"x 32". What moisture content would you suggest as a maximum before working it?

Larry Davis · #6 03-14-2007, 03:45 PM

6-8% moisture is fine.

Angus · #7 03-14-2007, 04:16 PM

Hey Larry, did you get my PM?

A place local to me here has a bunch of snakewood, but it's like $40/BF, checked to all hell and poor quality grain at that. Where does it grow?

Larry Davis · #8 03-14-2007, 04:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Angus

Hey Larry, did you get my PM?

A place local to me here has a bunch of snakewood, but it's like $40/BF, checked to all hell and poor quality grain at that. Where does it grow?

Got it, but frankly don't remember to check back on PM's. Email is the best communication method.

Snakewood is harvested from only one place that I'm aware of although it's said to growing in "Central and South America" in general.....Suriname.

Several years ago I managed to score about 800 pounds of 10 to 50 year old snakewood lumber in Brazil and that's what I've been working off of. I won't touch log portions regardless how the figure is. I'm nearly out of stock but that's OK, it isn't worth the trouble to acquire wet snakewood.

$40/board foot sounds extremely low. Must be $40/pound as that's the customary sales unit for snakewood.

tribal3140 · #9 03-14-2007, 06:12 PM

hes right, pad (partial air dry ) in log form it'll still cost you $20/lb

which at any place that imports logs a half log will be a grand!

pretty stuff but a pretty huge pain in the ass.