excellent new web site on chatoyancy

[phinds]

Hey all,

I've been contacted by email by a group of engineers in Italy who have made a scientific study of chatoyancy in wood and now have a web site displaying their results. I was a bit surprised by some of the chatoyance that they show (un-figured walnut with no finish, for example, is not a wood in which I've noticed chatoyance) but I am familiar w/ chatoyancy in some of the woods they show and their displays match my experience quite well.

Interestingly enough, they have developed a scientific, repeatable, method for measuring chatoyance on unfinished wood and assigning a numerical score to it for different woods samples The method, unfortunately, is not explained in detail yet, just in broad strokes. They show several samples of their results, with excellent videos of the chatoyancy and the numerical score they have assigned to each sample. They say there will be a forthcoming article on the methodology.

At any rate, I find the web site interesting enough that I thought I'd share it. I'll be adding a link to it on my own web site.

https://www.chatometry.com/

Home page header:



In the "case studies" they have done an examination of finishes' effects on chatoyancy in maple. Very interesting.
https://www.chatometry.com/finishing-maple/

 

[Gonzalodqa]

Really interesting website. I am surprised they didn’t measure any sample of mahogany

 

[phinds]

Really interesting website. I am surprised they didn’t measure any sample of mahogany

Well, they are still calling for samples, but yeah ...

 

[DLJeffs]

And the latest new must-have toy .... gonioreflectometer.

 

[TimR]

And the latest new must-have toy .... gonioreflectometer.

You don’t have one?? I thought everyone on WB had one!
All kidding aside that’s cool to see someone dug deeper into the topic.

 

[Mr. Peet]

I wanted to check it out, but comes up as an unsecured site. Maybe I'll try when I visit Paul...

 

[chatometry]

Hi everyone!
This is Paolo from chatometry.com
Thanks Paul for introducing us to this forum. I will take the chance to reply to some of the questions that were raised:

@phinds: all specimen were sanded up to 1500 grit; this way they all look almost like wet, and this shows whatever chatoyance the wood has to offer. Going to higher grit improves this effect, but for practical reasons we decided to stop at 1500. If you stop sanding at 120 or 180 grit you often notice no chatoyance at all before finishing.
When you say "un-figured" you are hitting the point: figure often means that, as you move the light, some areas get brighter while some adjacent areas get darker. This generates a contrast which highlights the chatoyance phenomenon, even when it is not numerically very high.
On the contrary, a straight-grained section may appear as non-chatoyant because its brightness changes globally, with no reference contrast points.
As a consequence, chatoyance and figure are often considered together, but this does not mean that straight-grained wood pieces are not chatoyant.

We plan to do more testing on finishes; however, apart from a few "standard" products such as shellac or BLO, we can only test local brands of finishes, surely unavailable outside of Italy. Having said this, we would be happy to test finished samples from anyone willing to send them.

@Gonzalodqa
We only show data for species where at least 5 different sources (or logs) were obtained. For Genuine Mahogany (if that's what you meant) we only have 4 sources at the moment. In September we should have data for ~10 more species. Then we'll be looking for supporters willing to provide samples.
In the "woods" page you will find Sapele and Khaya, both often sold as "Mahogany" in Italy, and both showing very high results ( >20 on average).

 

[Gonzalodqa]

Thanks for the answers.
How could people contribute? Do we need to send samples to you?

 

[chatometry]

Yes, please.
Samples we need are quite small: 150x40mm minimum for solid wood, any thickness; 160x60mm minimum for veneers. Anything bigger, we cut to size.

For finishing tests, we recommend using a non-porous wood or to fill the pores. We will measure the samples, then we will sand the finish away and remeasure the unfinished surface to provide a baseline for comparison.

Paolo

 

[phinds]

Hi everyone!
This is Paolo from chatometry.com

Hey Paolo, welcome to the forum. Glad you joined.

In accordance w/ the forum policy, please do an introductory post, here:
https://woodbarter.com/forums/introductions.3/

 

[phinds]

Everone, please refer to this thread:

https://woodbarter.com/threads/call...mall-wood-small-samples-for-chatoyance.46290/