Several years ago I purchased a couple of blanks from West Penn Hardwoods labelled as “Guapinolillo.” I bought these because I’d never heard of this wood and couldn’t find it for sale anywhere else. It seemed unique and special to me because of this. To make it more mysterious I couldn’t find a thing about this wood in my usual sources for basic information about woods. So I did a little digging.
It turns out that “Guapinolillo” is a synonym for Jatoba which is properly known as Hymenaea courbaril, a hardwood found from southern Mexico through Central America into northern South America. Jatoba is also known as “Brazilian Cherry” because of its color although it has essentially no relationship whatsoever with actual Cherry of the Prunus genus.
Jatoba can be fairly plain so I wonder if the more streaked and visually interesting pieces are labelled as Guapinolillo to mark this difference in appearance. This is, after all, the case with Goncalo Alves wood in which especially high grades are often sold under the name Jobillo. This is pure rank speculation on my part but it would make sense to me.
Guapinolillo
I have at least one piece of material ready to turn that is labelled Jatoba and I will cover the full basic information of the wood at the time I turn it. Mostly I wanted this post to be a point of clarification about naming and to present a photo of a turned and finished piece of wood labelled as Guapinolillo.
My pieces of Guapinolillo turned beautifully, sanded relatively easily with little tearout, and had a nice natural luster when finely sanded down to 800 grit. They took the final finish excellently as well. My first piece was badly checked and it broke along one of the check lines while on the lathe and almost finished. Sadly, this does happen. I had greater success with the second, larger, piece. Guapinolillo turned out to be a fine wood with which to work and I would work with it again although given how much wood I already have I don’t think I will be seeking it out especially.
All major cuts were made using the Easy Wood Tool system on my Robust American Beauty lathe, although I do use Robert Sorby bowl gouges for light final passes before sanding. Forward chucking was in a Nova Chuck, while reverse chucking was done using a Nova Chuck with Cole Jaws. Sanding was with Gold and Green Wave sanding discs from Packard Woodworks. Final finish is Shellawax.
As always, I wish all my readers a great experience in whatever your wood working interests happen to be and to those who like working with lathes especially, do a good turn today!