Busacca Gallery

"Rare antique" Lignum Vitae machine-tooled hardwood over 100 years old. The demand for this type of wood has been increasing, making it an expensive commodity. A wonderful example of a very rare piece of hardwood. This was probably used in a loom as a tool. Very heavy very dense material. Rare woods can be as much is gold itself. This piece of wood has a wonderful tactile feel to it. These types of woods are among the most expensive type on the planet. This species of wood is mostly used for making. Tool handles, mallet heads, bearings, bushings, pulley wheels, and turned objects. Color/Appearance: Heartwood color can range from a olive to a dark greenish brown to almost black, sometimes with a reddish hue. The color tends to darken with age, especially upon exposure to light. Color of genuine Lignum Vitae tends to be darker than that of Argentine Lignum Vitae. The name Lignum Vitae is Latin, and means tree of life, or wood of life, which is derived from the tree’s many medicinal uses. Grain/Texture: Grain is interlocked, sometimes severely so. Has a very fine texture and an oily feel. Bare wood can be polished to a very fine luster due to its high natural oil content. Due to the density of the wood, cricket bails, in particular "heavy bails" used in windy conditions, are sometimes made of lignum vitae. It is also sometimes used to make lawn bowls, croquet mallets, and skittles balls. The wood also has seen widespread historical usage in mortars and pestles and for wood carvers' mallets. The belaying pins and deadeyes aboard USS Constitution and many other sailing ships were made from lignum vitae. Due to its density and natural oils, they rarely require replacement, despite the severity of typical marine weathering conditions, and also resisted jamming in their mortise holes. The sheaves of blocks on sailing vessels were made of lignum vitae until the introduction of modern synthetics. Rot Resistance: Lignum Vitae is reported to be very durable for outdoor use and is also very resistant to insect attack. Workability: Lignum Vitae has a tendency to skip over-top jointer cutters on account of its extremely high density, and very light passes are recommended. Lignum Vitae will also dull cutters, and overall is considered quite difficult to work. Also, due to its high oil content and density, it’s very difficult to get a strong and reliable glue joint. However, Lignum Vitae is an exceptional wood for turning on the lathe, and finishes well. Prices for genuine Lignum Vitae are accordingly very high: Lignum Vitae is typically sold by the pound, (instead of the more common board-foot measurement), and since it is the heaviest wood in the world, this also makes it considerably expensive. Lignum Vitae is regarded by most to be both the heaviest and hardest wood in the world. Its durability in submerged or ground-contact applications is also exceptional. Lignum Vitae has been used for propeller shaft bearings on ships, and its natural oils provide self-lubrication that gives the wood excellent wear resistance. Unfortunately, Lignum Vitae has been exploited to the brink of extinction, and is now an endangered species. Verawood—a related wood species with similar working properties and characteristics—is commonly used as a substitute, and is sometimes called Argentine Lignum Vitae. Yet even this species (Bulnesia sarmientoi) has been included in CITES Appendix III, though it is not as restrictive as Appendix II where Lignum Vitae is found. Though Verawood is in a different Genus than Lignum Vitae, (Bulnesia and Guaiacum, respectively) both genera are biologically classified in the same Family: Zygophyllaceae. Both woods are extremely hard, heavy, oily, and have a feathered grain pattern with a distinct brownish olive color.

According to T. H. White's version of the King Arthur story The Once and Future King, lignum vitae, from which the wand of Merlin is made, has magical powers. Odor: Lignum Vitae has a mild, perfume-like fragrance. Due to lignum vitae's toughness, it can also be used as a lap in the process of cutting gems. Prices for genuine Lignum Vitae are accordingly very high: Lignum Vitae is typically sold by the pound, (instead of the more common board-foot measurement), and since it is the heaviest wood in the world, this also makes it considerably expensive. Master clockmaker John Harrison used lignum vitae in the bearings and gears of his pendulum clocks and his first three marine chronometers (all of which were large clocks rather than watches), since the wood is self-lubricating. The use of lignum vitae eliminates the need for horological lubricating oil; 18th-century horological oil would become viscous and reduce the accuracy of a timepiece under unfavourable conditions (including those that prevail at sea). For the same reason it was widely used in water-lubricated shaft bearings for ships. The United Railroads of San Francisco (an ancestor of the San Francisco Municipal Railway) began installing insulators made of composite materials to support the heavy 600-volt DC feeder wires for their trolley system in 1904. These lines were damaged, along with most everything else, during the 1906 earthquake and the fires that followed. Rebuilding the trolley system and expanding it to replace cable car routes destroyed in the quake created a huge demand for insulators, a demand manufacturers further east were unable to meet. The properties of lignum vitae, namely its ability to withstand high stress (from heavy cables on long spans and the strain of lines rounding corners) and high temperature (due to the feeder cables becoming very hot during peak operating hours), and its ready availability from the holds of the ships in the harbor (used as dunnage and ballast) made it an ideal 'temporary' solution. Many remained into service well into the 1970s, with the last few pieces replaced in the 2000s in favor of an underground feeder system.

Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lignum_vitae

Lignum vitae is a wood, also called guayacan or guaiacum, and in parts of Europe known as Pockholz or pokhout, from trees of the genus Guaiacum. The trees are indigenous to the Caribbean and the northern coast of South America (e.g: Venezuela) and have been an important export crop to Europe since the beginning of the 16th century. The wood was once very important for applications requiring a material with its extraordinary combination of strength, toughness, and density. It is also the national tree of the Bahamas, and the Jamaican national flower.

The tree is slow–growing and relatively small in stature, even when mature and old. It bears small, purplish–blue flowers which result in paired orange dehiscent fruits. The bark is mottled.

The wood is obtained chiefly from Guaiacum officinale and Guaiacum sanctum, both small, slow–growing trees. All species of the genus Guaiacum are now listed in Appendix II of CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) as potentially endangered species. G. sanctum is listed as Near Threatened by the IUCN Red List. Demand for the wood has been reduced by modern materials science, which has led to polymer, alloys and composite materials that can take lignum vitae's place.

Lignum vitae is Latin for "wood of life". The plant derives its name from its medicinal uses; lignum vitae resin has been used to treat a variety of medical conditions from coughs to arthritis, and chips of the wood can also be used to brew a tea.

Other names for lignum vitae include palo santo (Spanish for "holy wood"), Aura palo santo and "bastard greenheart" (not to be confused with true greenheart Chlorocardium rodiei, a popular wood in shipbuilding, cabinetry, and woodturning but a completely different timber). Lignum vitae is also one of the numerous hard, dense woods loosely referred to as "ironwood".

Lignum vitae is hard and durable, and is also the densest wood traded (average dried density: ~79 lbs/ft3 or ~1260 kg/m3); it will easily sink in water. On the Janka scale of hardness, which measures hardness of woods, lignum vitae ranks highest of the trade woods, with a Janka hardness of 4500 lbf (compared with Olneya at 3260 lbf, African blackwood at 2940 lbf, hickory at 1820 lbf, red oak at 1290 lbf, yellow pine at 690 lbf, and Balsa at 100 lbf). The densest of all woods is Allocasuarina luehmannii.