Bocote and Cocobolo Box - 162
Measures 13" long by 9" wide by 6" tall. $150
Bocote box - The Bocote tree grows in Mexico and Central/South America. It reaches 65 to 100 feet tall with a 3 to 5 foot trunk. The wood has a yellowish-brown body with dramatic dark brown to almost black stripes. Color tends to darken with age. The grain patterning can be quite striking. It's not uncommon to see many “eyes” and other figuring: though unlike knots, they do not seem to present any special challenges in machining. It is commonly used for fine furniture, cabinetry, flooring, veneer, boatbuilding, musical instruments, gunstocks, turned objects, and other small specialty wood items.
Cocobolo top - Cocobolo is a tropical hardwood of the tree Dalbergia retusa from Central America. Only the heartwood is used: this is typically orange or reddish-brown in color, often with a figuring of darker irregular traces weaving through the wood. Cocobolo is oily in look and feel. This oil lends a strong, unmistakable floral odor even to well-seasoned wood and occasionally stains the hands with prolonged exposure. Standing up well to repeated handling and exposure to water, a common use is in gun grips and knife handles. Besides its use in gun grips and knife handles, cocobolo is favored for fine inlay work for custom high-end cue sticks, police batons, pens, brush backs, and musical instruments, especially guitars, drums and basses. Jerry Garcia's Tiger (guitar) has a cocobolo top and back.
It is very hard, fine textured, and dense, but is easily machined, although due to the abundance of natural oils, the wood tends to clog abrasives and fine-toothed saw blades, like other very hard, very dense tropical woods. Due to its density and hardness, even a large block of the cut wood will produce a clear musical tone if struck. Cocobolo can be polished to a lustrous, glassy finish.