Kingwood

As is true of many of the Dalbergia genus rosewoods, Kingwood has very high natural oil content.  This high oil content can cause difficulties when drilling or sanding Kingwood due to the oil overheating causing drills to seize and abrasives to gum up quickly.  In addition, the high oil content coupled with the high density can create difficulties in gluing Kingwood.

Patience in drilling coupled with frequent cleaning of the shavings from the bore is essential.  The use of open weave abrasives, such as Abranet, can be of great assistance in sanding.  And finally, using a solvent such as acetone or paint/lacquer thinner on surfaces to be glued immediately prior to gluing can be immensely helpful in achieving success.

Foreknowledge is often your best tool when working with a new exotic hardwood, so once aware of the potential pitfalls you can be prepared to deal with them before they occur.

And, on the plus side with Kingwood, it makes an excellent turning wood, which is of the greatest relevance for our purposes.  And that high natural oil content means that your finished turned Kingwood piece will easily take on a very high natural polish.

A final plus to working with Kingwood, and one of my favorite characteristics of the wood, is the delightful rosy odor when the wood is freshly cut, turned, or otherwise worked.

Pricing and Availability

Simply put, Kingwood is very expensive and one should expect to pay among the highest prices for any exotic hardwood to obtain it.  In addition, Kingwood is almost never available in lumber format due to the small size of the tree, so expect to find only smallish turning blank sizes, especially spindle pieces as opposed to bowl blanks.

In this blog, I almost always recommend several vendors with whom I have done considerable business and in whom I have great confidence.  These vendors are: West Penn Hardwoods, Bell Forest Products, NC Wood, Got Wood?, and WoodTurningz.

Of these fine vendors, only West Penn Hardwoods and Bell Forest Products are currently offering Kingwood.

Bell Forest Products offers both Brazilian and Mexican Kingwood, with the later sold as “Camatillo.”  In both cases only small spindle sizes are being offered with the Mexican variety commanding extremely high prices, up to $100 for a 3 foot length of 1.5” square.

By contrast, West Penn Hardwoods is offering Brazilian Kingwood in sizes ranging from pen blank through to a 6”x6”x2” bowl blank.  The bowl blank is selling for $45.

Woodfinder is an excellent website that is dedicated to advertising wood dealers.  In your search for Kingwood, this can be an invaluable resource provided you use multiple search terms to capture all the possible listings.  I can’t speak to the quality of any of the listed dealers, but Woodfinder does have the advantage of allowing searches to be performed based on location which might allow an interested buyer to visit a listed wood dealer in person to hand pick pieces at a comfortable price.

A significant problem with using Woodfinder is that many vendors are listed for woods that, upon further investigation, they do not offer.  I don’t know if perhaps once they did and they didn’t update their listings or if some vendors use a standardized list of woods that include most everything conceivable with the idea that once you land on their page you will find something you want to buy even if you didn’t know it beforehand.  It happens to me all the time!

Uses

Given the rarity and expense of Kingwood, its most common uses involve only small pieces of the wood.  Inlay and veneer uses are common uses of Kingwood, while other specialty uses include tool handles for very high end turning and carving tools, as well as other small specialty items turned on a wood lathe that take advantage of Kingwood’s hardness and high natural luster when properly surfaced, such as fine writing implements.