Ziricote:

One of the most dramatic member of the Cordia genus and stands apart from other exotic woods due to it’s unique grain lines that frequently depict spider webbing, marbled swirls, cloud bursts, mountains, valleys and other captivating patterns. The heartwood is reddish brown with irregular chocolate or black streaks that tend to form abstract art within itself. These color tones contrast nicely with the sapwood which ranges from creamy vanilla to golden tan. Artisan craftsmen are fond of incorporating this sapwood into their projects to maximize the final visual impact. It is a stunning combination indeed!

With a density higher than rosewood, Ziricote turns very well. It is able to take a very smooth finish and a high polish. Ziricote is slightly brittle but also known as a good steam bending candidate and is proven to hold nails and screws well. This exotic hardwood is easy to work by hand or machine and is stable in use. Ziricote wood has a medium to fine texture and a straight to slightly interlocking grain. It has a tendency to develop end and surface checks during drying, but is stable afterwards. Quartersawn surfaces will sometimes display ray or flake patterns similar to Hard Maple. The highly figured spider web grain is similar to what can be found in Brazilian Rosewood only more complex. The surface has a natural waxy appearance and takes on a satin finish with simple sanding.

Cocobolo 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. The sapwood (not often used) is a creamy yellow, with a sharp boundary with the heartwood. The heartwood is known to change color after being cut, lending to its appeal.

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. 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. The high natural oil content of the wood makes it difficult to achieve a strong glue joint, and can inhibit the curing of some varnishes, particularly oil based finishes.
Just recently Cocobolo is no longer available in Canada.

African Padauk : Bright red or orange in color, deepening in time to a very deep red. Usually fairly dense and heavy, coarse textured, with prominent open pores. Density varies as a result of growing conditions, generally machines well regardless of density, but the fine dust can be irritating.

Padauk wood is obtained from several species of Pterocarpus. All padauks are of African or Asian origin. Padauks are valued for their toughness, stability in use, and decorativeness, most having a reddish wood. Most Pterocarpus woods contain either water- or alcohol-soluble substances and can be used as dyes.

The padauk found most often in the timber trade is African Padauk from Pterocarpus soyauxii which, when freshly cut, is a very bright red but when exposed to sunlight fades over time to a warm brown. Its colour makes it a favourite among woodworkers. Burmese Padauk is Pterocarpus macrocarpus while Andaman Padauk is Pterocarpus dalbergioides.

Curly Maple is not actually a species, but simply a description of a figure in the grain—it occurs most often in soft maples, but is also seen in hard maples. It is so called because the ripples in the grain pattern create a three dimensional effect that appears as if the grain has “curled” along the length of the board. Other names for this phenomenon are: tiger maple, fiddleback maple, (in reference to curly maple’s historic use for the backs and sides of violins), or flamed maple. Unlike quilted maple, curly maple is most pronounced when the board is quartersawn, and the curls usually become much less pronounced or absent in flatsawn boards. Hence, on wide boards where the grain tends to be close to vertical (quartersawn) near the edges and horizontal (flatsawn) in the center, the curly pattern will be most evident on the edges of the board, with the figure diminishing in the center.

Snakewood comes from a smallish, relatively rare tree found in the forests of Central and South America and is reportedly is somewhat brittle and difficult to work, but worth the effort. It is very rare in general and fully figured pieces are even rarer and very expensive. It is also available in subfigure form, usually at a greatly reduced price. There is generally a problem with pith checking (that is, the centers of the logs tend to have long voids and splits after drying). Typically only 25% of a log will have the famous snakeskin figure and this, combined with the frequent pith checks make it a popular wood for vendors to sell in log form by the pound because that way they put the onus on the buyer of finding out the typically bad news about what’s inside the log. The color, which can be quite bright on first exposure, and have a lot of red, darkens with age to a solid brown. Both figured and unfigured sections are prone to extremely thin cracks that sometimes cannot be seen until after the wood is fully worked and a finish is applied.

Australian Rosewood: This eastern coast rain forest tree has been banned from being logged in New South Wales state forests due to past over cutting. Some timber though is occasionally available on the market which would either have come from private land or from trees which have either fallen down in a state forest or have had to be removed because of some extenuating circumstance. It is beautiful amber / red timber, although somewhat brittle, which has a distinctive rose-like aroma from which it gets its common name. With some pieces of timber it is very hard to get a good finish as an oleo-resin can persistently seep through making the surface very sticky. This resin can be removed with methylated spirits.