Fortunately, one advantage of the softness of Monkeypod is that it sands incredibly fast to a smooth surface although one that is still visible porous. It was necessary to regularly use compressed air to blow the sanding dust out of the pores to accurately assess the success of the sanding process.
I have already addressed the possible negative health impacts that the dust, especially, had on me, but it bears repeating that different woods can cause different adverse reactions in different people, so always use appropriate protective tools and measures when exposure to wood dust is likely.
My piece of Monkeypod had a good deal of insect borer holes, some of which pass completely through the finished piece. Personally, I don’t mind these holes because for me it simply represents part of the natural variability and beauty of wood, but for some wood turners this would mean the piece was useless except as firewood. An additional degree of appreciation for this damage for me personally is because I know that the vendor from whom I bought this piece of Monkeypod only sells wood harvested from trees that have been removed due to disease or due to posing a risk to structures or people. Such trees well might have some degree of insect damage but the sustainability of this harvesting approach appeals to me as well.
After an easy sanding process, I applied a coat of liquid Shellawax, my usual favorite finish for turned bowls. The Monkeypod greedily drank up the finish into those big pores and I have to liberally apply the finish to achieve a nice smooth and consistent finish. I noticed that the color of the wood darkened rather appreciably with the application of the finish, but as this color shift was universal and consistent I wasn’t displeased with the outcome.
Despite having some difficulties with the dust exposure with Monkeypod and difficulties achieving a clean cut finish, I enjoyed working with this new material. Now that I know what to expect, I would be better prepared by wearing a dust mask for all cuts instead of waiting for only the sanding phase. And I would know that regardless of how sharp a tool I might be using, some degree of, even significant, cross and end grain tearout would be expected but that the softness of the wood would allow for quite easy sanding of even the most difficult areas. Having this knowledge ahead of time would allow me to focus on the natural beauty of the wood which does rather greatly resemble Koa, although it is much lighter and less dense. In fact, the lightness and low density have their own pleasant surprise because even a very large bowl would still be quite light and airy when picked up which would provide a certain degree of surprise to a user who wasn’t familiar with the wood.
When I first encountered the adverse respiratory reaction I thought that I would never use Monkeypod again, but now that I have finished the piece and know that a simple dust mask will resolve the worst of the concerns, I might just try to find a much larger piece to make a large, but still very lightweight, bowl in the future.
As always, I wish all my readers a great experience in whatever their wood working interests happen to be and to those who like working with lathes especially, do a good turn today!