Purpleheart

I believe there are about 7 different species that are the most common among purpleheart that is commercially sold. Which ones, I don't know. Also, I doubt vendors know which specific ones they are selling. Good luck.

Kelly
 
Although I really like Purple Heart for building cues, if it wasn't for the shipping, Purple Heart would be one of the cheapest woods on earth. They use the logs for building piers and pallets where it originates. The trees are immense. I used to buy turning squares 1.5x1.5 x 24" long for 2.05 each. 1x1x30 were 1.00.

Dick
 
Purple heart

It is hard to find a wood more versatile than PH. It is stable, has great resonance, easy to work and inexpensive. I buy the lumber and look for straight grain quarter sawn pieces as shown in the pics. If a piece has nice curl I set it aside for a butt billet. When threading PH it does take a little more patience than most other woods (live tooling and xtra slow feed/speed).
I cut the lumber into squares and then turn round on my saw machine. Then the culling starts by first applying the drop test on concrete. You will know immediately if you have a winner. As a side note: If the piece is not good enough for a shaft it is certainly NOT good enough for a core.
PHSHAFTS002JPEG.jpg
 
EightballJunkie said:
Doing a little research today, and I'm starting to see why there's so much variance in the color and grain patterns of Purpleheart.

Peltogyne paniculata, Peltogyne pubescens, Peltogyne purpurea, Peltogyne venosa ...the list just goes on and on with 23 subspecies in all.

As I begin to hoard wood, I'm wondering if there is a more commonly used and/or desirable subspecies in cuemaking?

TIA
Click to expand...


I was watching some history show and they state we have over 5000 favors. Maple has about 300 subspecies.
 
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