Tilia americana<\/em> (Basswood, Linden, or Lime with the latter two being European common names) that had been cleverly dyed blue and then sold as a naturally blue wood.<\/p>\nAs a soft wood the Bluewood cut rapidly and easily but not very cleanly. Bluewood, as I expected, sanded quite easily and quickly. And it is obviously blue completely through with even the sanding dust being distinctly blue in coloration.<\/p>\n
I opted to use a cyanoacrylate finish, as I tend to do on most all pens that I make, and I discovered, somewhat to my surprise, that the finish significantly darkened the Bluewood. It was still recognizably blue but it was much darker following the application of the finish. Unfortunately, I don’t think that the person I gave it to as a Christmas gift appreciated the rare nature of a naturally blue wood, but I remained impressed.<\/p>\n
The characteristics of the true Brazil Bluewood from Texas simply do not match up with the wood that I worked with although those characteristics seem to be in doubt as well since almost every source that references C. hookeri<\/em> refers only to the botanical nature of the shrub with only two sources addressing the appearance of the wood and those are in conflict with one source claiming the wood is red and the other claiming it is gray. I suppose a blue dye could be extracted from a reddish wood but I am skeptical about that although I can easily believe that a grayish wood could yield a bluish dye although I can’t imagine it would be a bright blue.<\/p>\nTrue blue is a very rare color to have occur in nature, being rarely seen even in flowers and not in any fruit that I am familiar with. In the final analysis I think that the wood I purchased as a wood that was naturally blue throughout was an eBay scam. I simply do not believe that if there really was a wood that was naturally intensely blue throughout that more would not have been written about it or that other examples of turned pieces would have turned up online somewhere.<\/p>\n
I think that in 2009 I was credulous and easily misled by wood scammers due to my lack of familiarity with different woods and I fell for it. If this wood was real and not simply a dyed softwood surely it would still be sold because it would have a high appeal to wood turners and other wood workers. This experience further causes me to be quite vary of buying much of anything, let alone wood, on auction sites such as eBay where the barrier against scam artists is low to non-existent.<\/p>\n
If I had to put a name to the wood I worked with I would go with Basswood or perhaps a Eucaplytus<\/em> species that was cleverly dyed. But I will never know for certain and the old adage remains as true today as ever: If it sounds too good to true it probably is. A naturally occurring through and through blue wood just sounds too good to be true. So, shame on me for falling for it in my wood turning youth.<\/p>\nThe seller was listed as “stevesstuff66”. I cannot recommend purchasing ANYTHING from this seller, although predictably there is no longer any such seller listed on eBay.<\/p>\n
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!<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
True blue is a very rare color to have occur in nature, being rarely seen even in flowers and not in any fruit that I am familiar with. In the final analysis I think that the wood I purchased as a wood that was naturally blue throughout was an eBay scam. I simply do not believe that if there really was a wood that was naturally intensely blue throughout that more would not have been written about it or that other examples of turned pieces would have turned up online somewhere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":175,"featured_media":2190,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[141,127,128,138,130],"tags":[171,183,200,210,214,263,239,240,249],"yoast_head":"\n
Bluewood or eBay Scam Artist - Wood Turning Pens ..<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n