My favorite observation about this wood is that it "turns like frozen butter" --- I don't know that it is quite THAT nice to turn but it IS wonderful to turn and what felicitous phrasing.
my samples:
small plank --- end grain enlargement below, but there is no visible grain in this piece --- what LOOKS like horizontal grain lines in the butt end pic below is orbital sander marks. This piece clearly shows the typical sharp demarcation between heartwood and sapwood.
end grain closeup of the piece directly above --- the small circular marks that are clearly visible in the 2nd enlargement are orbital sander marks, and all of the other lines you can see in this are sanding marks. This butt end was fine sanded and feels like oiled glass to the touch, despite the scratches that show up in this magnification. The 2nd enlargement does show pores fairly clearly.
African blackwood, small "planks" and closeup --- the sapwood color is accurate (light greyish tan) and note that the bottom piece actually shows some grain, which does occasionally happen with this wood, although not always (see the piece directly below, for example)
very small plank with a very well-lit and well-focused pic that shows the futility of taking pics of this wood, since all you usually see is black. This one was sanded only to medium fine so does not show the absolute glassy surface you can achieve on this wood.
two small slabs, one of which shows some grain on the face (see below)
face grain and end grain closeups from the pieces directly above. As usual, the end grain closeup is just an exercise in showing a really well-focused pic of a bunch of sanding scratches.
another small plank, showing accurately colored sapwood and the sharp demarcation between heartwood and sapwood. Medium fine sanded, this piece does not show the glass-like surface you can obtain on this wood.
plank with highly visible grain pattern --- there is a red tint to this pic that is false (the wood is almost pure black) but the grain pattern is a contrast of pure black and dark grayish black
a couple of sticks and end grain --- very clear grain pattern show up a little better in the enlargements; color is very accurate.
end grain closeups of the stick directly above --- color is accurate; I did NOT lighten these to make the grain pattern show up.
a couple of sticks, one of which shows some sapwood that is more orange than what I usually see in this wood
end grain closeups of the sticks directly above, but with such a poor sanding job that really all you see are the sanding scratches (and the sapwood color, which is accurate)
small plank and end grain; this particular piece is jet black throughout ... even better than many pieces of gaboon ebony that I've seen. I did not do an end grain closeup for this piece since, as noted elsewhere on this page, that would just have been a really well focused pic of sanding scratches on a pure black background.
I cut open the piece directly above and as I expected, the inside shows the typical grain pattern of this species.
web pics
a piece showing the typical abrupt change from heartwood to sapwood, which I also noticed on my own samples.
logs --- based on what I believe to be reliable statements regarding the relative thinness of the sapwood in the tree, I judge these to be quite small logs or even just branches.
the end section of a blackwood log. "mpingo" is a local common name for the wood where it grows. The heartwood as seen here looks to me to be a little more orange than is commonly the case but that may just be an artifact of the pic.
NOT A NATURAL WOOD COLOR here I have done something I almost never do, which is DELIBERATELY make the color of a wood incorrect. When I got this pic, all you could see on my monitor was pure black, but when I played with the color I could begin to see the grain pattern, so I have deliberately posted this pic with the color enough off of black that you too can see the grain pattern, particularly if you click to enlarge it.
planks
plank with a lot of sapwood
plank and closeup
planks with sapwood --- I'm confident that in both cases, the ribbed figure is from the saw or planer, not inherent in the grain.
turning sticks
turning blocks
turning stock, all from the same vendor. I believe that the purple tint in these pics is an artifact of the pics, NOT a reflection of the true color of the wood, which I assume to be black.
scales of African blackwood crotch
African blackwood bowl made from a piece with unusually visible grain
spoon made by Richard Carlisle
goblet by Steve Earis; very large enlargements are present
three views of a 6" bowl by Steve Earis; thanks to Steve's excellent photography, very large enlargements are present that really show the grain well
bowls by Bryan Nelson (NelsonWood). Bryan fine-polishes his bowls with 1200 or even higher grit sandpaper while they are spinning at high speed on the lathe and then finishes them there with a friction polish of his own devising, thus achieving a shine and color vibrancy that is beautiful to behold. I'm not sure of the size of the first bowl, but the other two are 5" across.
NOT A NATURAL WOOD COLOR
