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I’ve heard it is horribly difficult to work? Anyone have experience with this wood? I’ve dealt with wedge, which can be brittle and splintery, but never a wood with a rep as bad a PH. What make it so bad... besides being purple ha (which I know fades much like padauk).
Thanks
B


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Few things
When purpleheart gets hot it tends to exude an oil/sap that will not let glue adhere to it.
It's extremely hard and dense, workability is similar to ebony. However it can be very "chippy" if you're doing fine work.
Very easy to get tearout if you're working with hand planes. The grain can be very inconsistent.
Some folks I've met get some skin irritation from working with it. They are not the majority.

Some time ago I had a bass come into my shop that had some serious glue separation issues. It was mostly made from purpleheart and some other exotics. The problem was that he cut the long pieces in a single pass with dull tools and as a result the buildup of the gummy sap caused a film that the glue didn't adhere to, at less than a year old the bass was pulling itself apart.

Other than those things it's a beaufitul wood, it's a nice alternative for ebony/rosewood on things like fingerboards.

I built one of my first ukulele out of it. It bent at 300 degrees like a dream and I found it was relatively easy to use.

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I built a 00 from purple heart a couple years back and it’s still looking pretty good color wise. It was starting to brown out though last time I saw it. It is finished with EnduroVar.

Like others have said it’s rock hard. The sides bent fine for me at 300 at ~0.070. I do remember it being finicky when planing the sides down to meet the blocks. I had to change directions to keep it from tearing out. It is hard on edge tools in general. It paired nicely with Ebony bindings.

Brad


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Everything I ever made with the stuff turned from purple to brown in a few years from UV exposure.

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Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

I've built a few dulcimers out of purple heart and a dresser for a customer who had a bunch of that wood. Like Wenge it can give you nasty splinters, but I didn't notice any great problems with it otherwise.

I've had a nice quarter sawn board of Purpleheart for like 20 years now waiting to be resawn and built into a guitar. It's still purple looking though mostly brown. But then again even very fine BRW looks like brow wood and people pay thousands for it. I don't see that as necessarily bad but a person buying a purple guitar because it's purple might be disappoined in time.

I like it for fret boards and bridges but they turn brown after a while.

That's purty!

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

thanks banjopicks,
I've built at least 10 fingerboards and bridges out of a 1"X8"X8' so far out of that board and still haven't used but about 1/2 of it. I don't think it would be too much fun trying to saw sides, neck or backs out of. It burns real easy and you have to change /clean blades whether on bandsaw or table saw.

I've seen it used for back and sides since my first class in classical guitar building back in 1972. The local hardwoods place that usually supplied Braz RW for the class (at $10.00 per set) was out and a few people bought purpleheart. It did work fine, but dulled tools really fast. I didn't use it myself, but the resulting instruments sounded just as good as some of the RW models.