Exotic Wood cocobolo

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COCOBOLO

Dalbergia retusa

my samples. some minor color correction has been used and all colors are quite accurate. the variation in color and grain pattern in this wood is extreme, as you can see.

both sides of a really nice plank. Upon sanding, the beautiful patina went away, but the wood is still gorgeous.

a couple of small planks and end grain

end grain closeup of one of the planks directly above

small plank and end grain --- this piece very nicely shows two things about the sapwood of cocobolo. First, it is sharply demarcated from the heartwood and second it is a somewhat ugly grayish tan. I have seen (and show below) sapwood that is a more lively yellow, but that is the exception, not the rule.

end grain closeup of the piece directly above

plank and closeup --- this one goes all the way across the tree and very nicely shows both the color of the sapwood and the typical clean delineation between heartwood and sapwood for this species. I forgot to take pics of any of the pieces I cut off of this plank, but they were BEAUTIFUL --- deep rich reds and purples with a magnificent grain.

web pic as posted by the vendor who sold me the plank above --- my color is accurate

allthough the sapwood of cocobolo is more typically tan, or even an ugly greyish tan (see the solid cocobolo bowl at the bottom of this page), it is occassionally yellow, and when I was looking at this glued up piece that will become part of one of my laminated bowls, I noticed that the sapwood on the cocobolo (the small square-ended section in the upper right) was almost identical in color to the piece of yellowheart right next to it.

three "sticks" showing 2 sides of each --- the enlargements show up better than these small shots

two sides of a single "stick"

two sides of a single "stick". Note how this looks almost exactly like Bolivian rosewood, which as I recall is a close relative of cocobolo

some turning sticks donated by Jim Glynn --- thanks Jim. (NOTE: the purple color is accurate)

a set of turning sticks showing some of the grain and color variation available. (NOTE: the orange color is accurate)

a set of 5 turning sticks and then two pieces of veneer. The 5-piece pic really shows some good cocobolo grain when expanded. The sticks are 6" long and were 120-grit sanded on the surface shown. They were specifically chosen and placed in this order to show a progression of mostly orange background to mostly dark background.

a couple of sets of small sticks of a particularly orange cocobolo --- very nice; color is accurate

three sets of thins chosen (from several dozen) to show a variety of color and grain. These are rough. Some sanding would make the color look better. Colors are reasonably accurate.

a set of thins all cut from the same section of a 1 1/2" turning square

the freshly exposed inside (left) and long-exposed outside (right) of a 6" turning stick that was just cut in half lengthwise. An excellent example of how cocobolo color changes with exposure.

showing the side grain of the stick in the pictures directly above

both sides of a plank --- the side in the 1st pic has been freshly, but lightly, sanded and the side in the 2nd pic has a much longer exposure and shows a nice patina

both ends of the plank, shown with the freshly sanded side up

a smaller piece cut from the larger piece above, and the same piece moistened with water

same set as directly above but from the opposite end

end grain closeup of the piece directly above --- the dark diagonal marks are just pressure marks, not inherent in the grain

the back side of the piece direcly above, freshly, and very roughly, sanded

veneer sheet and closeup --- veneer is rare for this species because the tree is typically too small to make veneer cutting feasible. The veneer, like the lumber, is expensive. If I had seen this piece with no name tag, I would have assumed it was Brazilian rosewood (they are close cousins)

quartersawn veneer sheet contributed to the site by John Chamberlain, whom I thank for this excellent quality sheet.

cocobolo picture compulsive behavior

Some people cannot stop themselves from drinking too much alcohol. I can't stop myself from taking pictures of cocobolo.

three shots of the same long plank

three shots of the same plank; in the first pic, the wood is raw as I received it and then I rough-sanded it for the next two pics. In some aged cocobolo, sanding takes off a substantial patina and significantly changed the color, but that didn't happen on this one, so I assume the piece hadn't been aging all that long by the time I got it.

before and after pics of a piece that I sanded (the 2nd pic is cut off and sanded)

another piece shown both raw and sanded --- on this one, the removal of the patina is noticable

a pair of scales, with one side raw (with patina) and the other side freshly sanded. Good example of how freshly sanded cocobolo is sometimes very purple. In the first pic, the upper piece is the raw side and in the 2nd pic the lower piece is the raw side.

just more examples of my compulsive behavior --- all of these small pieces are freshly sanded

the middle piece is unsanded, with patina, the other two are freshly sanded.

side grain example, freshly sanded

small plank freshly sanded

plank raw, then freshly sanded.

freshly sanded piece

several shots of some small cutoffs that have a particular purple color, freshly sanded, and that also exhibit some good sapwood views

just another end grain shot

some relatively bland-colored pieces, freshly rough-sanded (and boy are those sanding marks visible)

OK, that's it. I'm going to join a 12-step program for people who can't stop taking pictures of cocobolo, and I'm never ever again going to post any more pictures of cocobolo, at least not for several more days.

OK, more than several days have gone by and I have some new pieces to show:

large plank and closeup --- this was apparently planed some time ago, as it has acquired a nice patina

plank and end grain cut from the larger plank directly above --- I've sanded off some of the patina, but not all of it. If I went down another 1/16th inch, it would be purple, as you can see from the side grain closeup below

end grain closeup of the piece directly above --- when I first sanded it, this view was a lighter purple, somewhat like the side grain directly below, but as I used finer sandpaper, it turned darker.

side grain closeup of the piece directly above --- this shows how the plank is purple down beneath the red/orange patina (the top and bottom of this pic show the red/orange patina that goes down into the wood less than 1/16th of an inch)

a 'side-and-top' angled shot of an extremely dark 2" square turning "stick" --- the slight mottle shown in the unsanded face pic has been listed by at least one vendor as "bee's wing" (see web pics below for an example) but as you can see on the sanded face pic, the mottle pretty much disappears upon sanding and it is not in any case a true bee's wing mottle. Generally, cocobolo that is very dark like this is advertised as Guatamalan. I have never seen any this dark advertised as Mexican.

small plank and end grain, cut from the larger piece directly above --- I thought that when I opened this up, it would be a lighter purple inside, but it was hardly lighter at all and at first I thought it might be kingwood, not cocobolo, because of the consistent deep purple.

end grain closeup of the piece directly above

side grain closeup of the piece directly above --- on the first enlargement you can clearly see the marks of the orbital sander that I used for a final 320-grit sanding on this piece.

another very dark cocobolo plank (probably Guatamalan) and end grain

end grain closeup of the piece directly above

both sides of a plank with a lot of sapwood and closeups of each side. The first closeup is a little too dark --- I too out too much of the red when doing the color correction.

both sides of a long plank and a combined closeup of both sides together

dark plank and closeup

two planks showing some of the color range of this species (the tan colored section is sapwood)

set of small planks, some of which show the extreme color change that can occur in the heartwood of a single plank (the lighter color is NOT sapwood --- if you check out the sapwood on many pics on this page, you'll see that it is a grayish white and can sometime have a stong yellow tint, but it is NOT orange)

highly figured pair --- pic contributed by Todd Levy; thanks Todd.

web pics

bookmatched sets of highly figured Mexican cocobolo
that prorated out to just a hair over $1,000.00 per board foot !!!
Now, this is REALLY fancy wood, but $1,000/BF ???

plank with wet and dry sections --- in my own experience, wetting cocobolo does NOT have this dramatic an effect on the color. In fact, it has practically no effect at all if the wood is fine sanded, because the wood is practically waterproof. If this is a rough-sanded piece, then the moistening has had the effect of lessening the light reflected from all the sanding marks --- that's the only reason I can think of why there is such a large difference between wet and dry.

tree section with sapwood

three views of a spectacular plank, pics provided by James Taglienti, whom I thank for these and other pics. Both levels of enlargement are there for all three.

planks

planks in bookmatched pairs

turning blocks

a plank listed as "bee's wing" pattern, but I have purchased such planks and the mottle almost dissapears when the wood is sanded, and it is most emphatically NOT a true bee's wing pattern. You can see an example of this in the dark plank up in my own samples.

strips

waxed bowl blank

knife handle scales --- even for cocobolo that first pair of scales has a pretty amazing grain pattern

burls --- I find the brilliant red of the last one to be particularly unlikely for a raw wood color

unseasoned crotch wood

crotch sections --- last one is 2nd one moistened

unseasoned planks

big cocobolo planks:

a 10" wide, 3" thick plank, a huge figured plank that was listed at $50/BF, and an 8" wide plank

burl

crotches

more big planks

veneer --- I rarely see cocobolo offered as a veneer, probably because the trees are fairly small and of irregular form which does not lend itself to veneer production.

listed as cocobolo veneer, although it does not look to me to be cocobolo, the vendor who listed it is reliable.

veneer sheets and 2 closeups

a bunch of planks from the BogusColorVendor, put here to show the outstanding grain patterns that are available, but the colors are absolutely not to be believed.

both sides and a closeup of a bookmatched plank pair

planks

fiddleback

extreme swirling grain

colocobol grows in a number of places in South and Central America and is generally not listed by place of origin, but some vendors breaks out Mexican cocobolo for separate listings. All the wood in this section was listed as Mexican cocobolo

Mexican cocobolo planks and turning stock

bookmatched pairs of Mexican cocobolo

figured Mexican cocobolo bookmatched pairs

figured Mexican cocobolo turning sticks

other cocobolo listed by country of origin:

Panamanian cocobolo planks

Nicaraguan cocobolo plank and closeup and then another long plank

Solid cocobolo knives from a correspondant named Ason who is a Lord Of The Rings fan (in case you can't tell)

knife and sheath both made from the same plank

bowl --- this uniform bright red is outside of my experience but I cannot say that it is not correct.

bowl --- color is extreme but believable since a finishing agent has been applied.

bowl w/ an unusually light (but completely believable) orange color

guitar --- looks as much like kingwood as cocobolo

cocobolo highlights on turned bowls --- the first bowl has only a natural stain finish at the time of the picture and the 2nd bowl has a much lighter piece of cocobolo and several coats of polyurethane.

cocobolo sections in the middle of a laminated bowl, shown after the application of one coat of natural stain.

some shots of a cocobolo bowl that has a small area of sapwood --- left side of each pic shows it raw, right side is the same view but after an application of natural stain. The first pic shows an area that was near a crotch. The base is walnut (and the mounting holes have not yet been filled in). This was not a very exciting piece of cocobolo, but I think it turned out well.
NOTE: this is NOT cocobolo ... more to follow if I ever figure out what it IS.