VCarved buttons

Sounds like you have your material tests down well.
Thanks for the info.
Nice looking pieces as usual.

Just an aside...Black tray wood is C-90 Torrefied Ash with 3 coats Linseed/Beeswax NOT stained and the color goes all the way through. Machines beautifully and dimensionally stable, BUT loses a lot of mechanical strength as that's the highest level of Torrefication.
Basically cooked in a vacuum...C-30 is only slightly darker than the natural wood color and C-50 almost a Walnut color. Apparently doesn't work well with very dense woods like Hard Maple, so only Ash/soft Maple/Tamarack and woods like that are used. NOT for everyone(and HATE the pores on Ash), but an interesting wood Dad bought 100's of BF of. VERY thirsty wood.

Dave,
Bloodwood scraps in a Still soaking wet paper towel after 17hrs had zero color transfer to towel.
Grain raise was almost non-existent.
Forgot to mention one of my favorite features on Bloodwood is that it's usually chatoyant (cateye effect) when viewed 90 degrees to grain. Means you have that beautiful reddish color when viewed with grain, and then you rotate it and has almost a Quilted effect over the entire surface.
Think that's why women pick the Bloodwoods most often, as when they move or the angle of light changes...the button almost "Flashes" like Quilted/Curly, but the whole surface usually.
One lady was cherry-picking the buttons on appearance, and I told her to pick her 3 favorites....then I rotated the tray and she picked 3 different ones! She was hooked! :)

If it helps, I have done bloodwood inlays in bamboo (non caramelized) and used Behlen Laquer with zero bleeding.

Scott
I also bought a batch of the heat treated wood, mine was poplar it looked great. It looked like really nice walnut but it didn't carve well. It seems that the heat treating process destroys the bonds between the wood fibers so small details split off too easily. not as much of a problem for engraving but anything sticking up cracked off too easily for me to use it. It is totally rot proof, I was told, made some raised beds, no rot after 2 Georgia summers and no pressure treated chemicals in the garden If they last 20 years I think I'll be even on the cost.

Hey Bob,
Yep, the higher/darker Torrefied is too brittle for thin sections.
DOES engrave really clean because the fibers cut off so clean.
Think we lucked out on the cost...Dad went to the Kiln as it was only an hour away in Quebec Province. They only processed customers wood in full kiln loads, but they hooked him up with a nearby siding manufacturer. Turns out they use a LOT of it in Canada as exterior siding/trim.
You should be good for a while on yours, as this siding guy gets his kiln loads back, and THEN lets it sit out in the weather for an entire year exposed to elements before he even touches it! Even though they add steam to the chamber on the last phase to put moisture INTO the wood, he said it still took that amount of time to fully acclimate for siding. He gave Dad a pick-up truck load for I think it was $3.50 a BF for 4/4 (5-8"X8-10').
He gave Dad a few sample boards of different species/Torrefication levels. Think Poplar was one...going to have to dig them out of closet and look at them again.
NOT funny, but that Quebec plant burned to the ground when they lost Vac and oxygen got into the chamber...so what I've got is it!
Been trying to think of Bathroom/Outside items to make stuff out of it. People are loving the trays though and asking if we sell them...GOT to come up with something not so plain Vanilla though.

Had to resurface and seal my torrefied button backer/spoilboards with General Finish "Woodturners Finish" (water based PU with 1 hour recoat for THICK layer),so during one of the waits I dug out my Torrefied samples from closet.
Just thought I'd post for anybody interested.
Now that I see them again, I remember that until you get to about C-80, it machines like regular wood for the most part, except it cuts clean and more like dust than chips above C-50(at least for surfacing).
Would have been more interested if Dad had got some Soft Maple(and I see some people are offering Cherry? :)
http://www.torrefactionplus.ca/torre...od.php#qualite

Would be worried about screwing or bolting without careful testing. Did joint some pieces of C-90 Ash and glued with TB I, II,III, and Gorilla PU for a strength test as I had read gluing was horrendous, but Max G. got around to to gluing the exact wood Dad had given him with TBII and said it was a normal TB joint and wood failed before glue line so mine are still glued together after 18 months and still good after being knocked/dropped around the shop.
Put a straight edge on those surfaced sample boards that were surfaced 18 months ago, and even though they were just leaning against a closet wall, and humidity is 30% higher now..They're all still perfectly flat.
Last pic the color is lousy, but they are both C-90 Ash and the one on the left is my backer board with 4 coats of woodturners finish and right is just rough 4/4 that we have so much of.
Interesting stuff and think I might like the C-50 through C-70 in a closer grained wood than the Ash I have.
Interesting article about Martin Guitars
http://onemanz.com/guitar/articles-2/torrefication/
and was nice to finally see a pic of the vac chamber.
http://mectorrefaction.com/index.html

This one looks interesting enough to get me into the shop:)
Bloodwood or Purpleheart....Decisions, decisions.
1/2" BN in the center is making me nervous.

Cool buttons Scott! You could do a double tap with a 0.5" core box bit instead of an upcut ballnose.

Thanks Scott.
No .5"core box in shop, but doing a profile ramped cut at wimpy .01" passes (12:12 for 57 buttons see pic) and I may be OK.
Never even got to the BN cut as I was getting tearout and ran 5 tests in the Hard Maple kids blocks with both a 30 and a 45 degree.
Design is from a VInlay proto I have got around to yet that was 1.75". For this one I shrunk it down to .857" OD for the design and it's probably too busy. new 45 was better,30 may have been a little dull from Bloodwood(got 5 new bits coming tomorrow).
Going to try a 60 today but cut will only be .017" deep and worried about sanding design off.
Going to describe bits as an engraving bit(which it actually is) with the true .012" flat and maybe add a .04" flat depth today.
VERY glad I tried a block test first while I was sanding/coating Bloodwood and Purpleheart blanks.
Yesterday I skipped adding a coat of GF woodturners finish to the little blocks because I was rushing. Blanks normally get 1 coat at 220G and then 30 minutes later the 400&600G.
MAY try eliminating a vector and leave design proud, but cut times are already at 2 hours for the 57 buttons.
Started at normal Bloodwood settings of .8,.5,17K and went down to .5,.3,17K on third test and still got tearout, but it was better.
Gotta love proto'ing teeny stuff:)
Funny how preview never has tearout.
That center cut is only .51"OD. Does Infinity .5" bowl bit have plunge capacity? May be a perfect excuse to finally buy one.
I'll add close up pics of the reject test cuts later maybe.
scott