More Comfort Birds

Here are some more comfort birds carved from the exotic wood pieces we picked up in Ontario in May.

Canary Wood (Centrolobium spp) from South America (Panama to Brazil).  A very nice yellow wood.  The grain, when turned to the light, shows a really bright gold.

Black and White Ebony (Diospyros malabarica) from Laos and South East Asia. A very dense, hard wood with an average dried weight of 51 lbs per cubic foot. The markings here turned out real nice with the top of the beak showing black and the bottom showing white.

Bird’s Eye Maple (Acer saccharum) from Northeastern North America. The ‘bird’s eyes’ show up really well here, especially when polished to a nice finish. I decided to give this one a forked tail.

Paela Wood, also known as Chakte Viga (Ceasalpinia platyloba) from Mexico and Central America. This piece is from the heartwood of the tree and is typically bright orange, like this one. It finishes up beautifully to a high lustre.

East Indian Rosewood (Dalbergia latifolia) from India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia. The wood is purplish brown in colour and came up like soapstone when sanding was finished.  Then I made the mistake of applying some finishing oil that instantly darkened it to a deep brown.  Not bad, but much of the original color and grain definition was lost.

Bocote (Cordia spp.) from Mexico and Central/South America. It looks much like Tiger Wood, but with more wavy grain patterns and a bit more orange in colour.  The wood has enough natural oil to buff up to a high luster.

Pommele Sapele (Entandrophragma cylindricum) from Africa. Sapele is known for a wide variety of  figured grain, including a common ribbon pattern, pommele, quilted, mottled, wavy, beeswing, and fiddleback. This is pommele.  A unique feature of this grain pattern is when it's turned in the light it reveals a holographic effect.

Mayday, also known as Asian Bird Cherry (Prunus padus var. commutata). This is a late entry to the above lineup (April 2015). The bird was carved from the limb of a mayday tree that broke off during a heavy snowfall last October. The wood from the limb was salvaged and dried over the winter. It was carved in late March 2015.