Pommel or Pommele Sapele

I do not usually turn exotic woods but this board was an exception.  A friend was having difficulty selling his wood collection and needed to sell it to move.  I bought this board and quite a few others from him. I knew this piece of wood was special but I didn’t know it was this special.

Sapele is from Africa.  Sapele grows in East, Central and West Africa. Its growth range includes the Ivory Coast to the Cameroons to Zaire, Uganda and Tanzania. It is slightly heavier and finer grained than Honduras Mahogany.  This species is also called Sapele Mahogany. Sapele has beautiful, lustrous iridescence with colors that range from light pink to brown and gold to red. It has an interlocked grain which makes it difficult to machine or turn.  Really sharp tools and taking thinner cuts helps prevent tear out and chipping.

The sawdust smells like a spice. It reminds me of cinnamon. Some people are irritated by breathing the dust. To be safe, I wear a mask just in case.

Pommel or Pommele is the term for this particular grain pattern. It is similar to the quilted grain pattern that you see in some maple. Below is a picture of the pommele sapele board I cut a bowl blank from this morning. You can see the faint outlines of the pommele figure.

Pommele sapele is both chatoyant and iridescent. Moving it in the light changes what you see dramatically as you can see in the pictures below. I took them from the same distance in the same light and just rotated the bowl a few degrees. This is the bowl that was turned from the plank above. It is about 12” in diameter and 2” tall.

#1955 Pommele Sapele Wooden Bowl 12 1/4” X 1 7/8”

#1955 Pommele Sapele Wooden Bowl 12 1/4” X 1 7/8”

#1955 Pommele Sapele Wooden Bowl 12 1/4” X 1 7/8”