# My toughest to date



## wombat (Apr 9, 2013)

So, a mate at the pub works on high end flooring and stairs and every now and then will show up with a few left over bits. Anyway he showed up a couple of months ago with some 25mm 100 year old recycled Ironbark, and funny enough asked for a cattie to be made from it.

Being one of Australia's hardest woods with a janka rating of 14.0 I was worried about what it would do to my limited tools, so kept putting it off. But he kept reminding me, so finally I bit the bullet and got stuck into it.

Not being familiar with it, and being fussy about making a strong cattie the first thing I did was check it's long grain for shock resistance. My test method can be found here. Up till now spotted gum has been the winner with a "wombat number" of 27. After 40 drops of the sledge hammer all I managed to do was break a brick, okay so long grain, no problem! The next step is to clamp a piece in the vice and give it a whack with a hammer to check it's cross grain. Although it put up a bit of a fight compared to most woods, it still broke easily on the cross grain. A bit disappointed as I had hoped to avoid doing a split frame. If you're not familiar with the split frame, you can check it out here. 


In the end the tools survived, and the grain was nicer then I was expecting. With some spalted beach for a palm swell, he's going to end up with a nice cattie and since the only thing he seems to be able to hit is the forks!! It should be perfect for him.


[attachment=22737] [attachment=22738]

[attachment=22739] [attachment=22740] [attachment=22741]


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## rdnkmedic (Apr 9, 2013)

Nice work. You even write with an accent. This Georgia boy had to look at the pictures to figure out what you were talking about. I found myself trying to read it with my own Australian accent with a Georgia drawl. Awesome job. Nice finish.


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## phinds (Apr 9, 2013)

You discuss "ironbark" as though it were a single species. My database has about 50 species of eucalyptus that have "ironbark" as all or part of one or more of their common names, (plus another dozen non-eucalyptus species) so I'm curious what species you mean. Is it, perhaps, like "oak" in the US, which can be any one of hundreds of Quercus species and still be called just "oak"?


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## wombat (Apr 9, 2013)

phinds said:


> You discuss "ironbark" as though it were a single species. My database has about 50 species of eucalyptus that have "ironbark" as all or part of one or more of their common names, (plus another dozen non-eucalyptus species) so I'm curious what species you mean. Is it, perhaps, like "oak" in the US, which can be any one of hundreds of Quercus species and still be called just "oak"?



it's my understanding that when you say "ironbark" people generally know you're refering to grey iron bark, but with that said apparently different species can also be called grey iron bark!! ??
take a look at these two sites it might help clarify things a little, hehe didn't help me though!

here
and here


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