Leopardwood

leopardwood,face	leopardwood, end grain

This wood is visually a darker version of the better known lacewood, from Australia, but this is a Brazilian wood, very dense and heavy. It's extremely hard to work with hand tools, and about as splintery as any other wood. I think it's also very beautiful, and it works well for arts-and-crafts style construction, where it's reminiscent of fumed oak. I use it it my arts-andcrafts style jewelry box, and for legs and stretchers on my square inlay banding jewelry boxes.When quatersawn it has huge ray flecks, and this is the preferrred way of using it for most applications. It's very hard to dry, and often thicker stock will have wetter cores that can be a problem. The end grain is cool too, and I use it in my amish quilt jewelry box tops.