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Purpleheart Serving Tray 1208
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Measures 27" long by 10.5"wide - $60
Purpleheart – From Central and South America (from Mexico down to southern Brazil). Grain is usually straight often with a fine curly figure. Fine texture. Moderately hard to work but takes a glossy, lustrous finish. Sometimes called Amaranth, this colorful Latin American hardwood is tremendously popular for furniture and other designs that call for a unique splash of color. It is used in Inlays/accent pieces, flooring, furniture, boatbuilding, heavy construction, and a variety of specialty wood items. In addition to its coloration, Purpleheart has excellent strength properties, and can be used in applications where strength is important—a wood for both form and function.
Maple, Hard – The Hard Maple Tree is usually referred to as Sugar Maple, and is the tree most often tapped for maple syrup. Sugar Maple's leaves are the shape that most people associate with maple leaves; they typically have either 5 or 7 lobes, with vivid autumn coloring ranging from yellow to purplish red. Its wood is stronger, stiffer, harder, and denser than all the other species of Maple commercially available in lumber form. (It's also the state tree in four different states in the US.) Unlike most other hardwoods, the sapwood of Hard Maple lumber is most commonly used rather than its heartwood. Sapwood color ranges from nearly white, to an off-white cream color, sometimes with a reddish or golden hue. Hard maple is commonly used for flooring (from basketball courts and dance-floors to bowling alleys and residential), paper (pulpwood), making of musical instruments, cutting boards, butcher blocks, workbenches, baseball bats, and other turned objects and specialty wood items.
Wenge – Wenge is a member of the great tree producing family, Leguminosae and comes from Zaire and other small countries of West Africa. The wood has excellent strength and hardness properties, and is also dark enough to be used as a substitute for ebony – it is nearly 100% black. Wenge is also marked with slightly lighter brown streaks which gives the wood an unusual, yet delightful, appearance. Wenge is hard and heavy, and makes a superb accent wood in highly decorative projects. It is a good wood for turning and is sliced for paneling and veneers for furniture and cabinets and musical instruments. It is listed as endangered due to a population reduction of over 50% in the past three generations, caused by a decline in its natural range, and exploitation.