Purpleheart
Actually purple, and very hard.
lbf on the Janka scale
Harder than the range we like for boards
Padauk is 810 lbf softer than purpleheart, and sits inside the board range.
Color
Dull gray-purple when cut, brightening to eggplant, then browning slowly in the light
Where it came from
- Dried
- Kiln dried before anything is cut from it.
More about purpleheart at The Wood Database · Wood data: The Wood Database (Eric Meier)
Purpleheart is a South American wood and the color is real: a freshly cut face is a dull gray-purple that turns a deep eggplant within days of meeting the air. We use it in small doses, mostly in the chaos board, where a purple block between a walnut one and a maple one is the point.
How it ages
The purple is brightest a week after the piece is made. Sunlight takes it toward brown over the years; a board kept away from the window keeps its purple much longer. Oil brings it back a little each time.
Knife feel
One of the hardest woods we handle, well past what a knife likes to meet head on, so it appears only as small blocks among softer woods on a chopping surface, never as a board of its own.
