I make paradise boxes in Hawaii with traditional Hawaiian tapa/kapa cloth patterns on them that I bring into VCarve from photographs. I’ve posted a couple of boxes in the past, but wanted to further explore different types of wood to use.
In the interest of finding different wood that will suit this work I’ve just run a comparison of seven types of wood with a tapa pattern and thought it might be interesting to the group. From top left, primavera, cuban mahogany, monkeypod, bush box, and toon. Second pic is the reverse side, and the last pic adds a completed spalted mango paradise box on the left, and a dimensional lumber mahogany box on the right. The mango is actually considerably darker than the primavera but doesn’t show up that way in the photo. All were carved on a Shapeoko 3 XXL using a fresh Whiteside .25 V60, and finished in Danish oil with a 10 minute soak and wipe. (Yes, I’m aware that the bush box grain runs the wrong direction, but we work with what we have, yes? And the intent really was to see how they finished.) Shout-out to Waimanalo Wood for everything except the dimensional lumber mahogany which came from a local Hawaiian hardware store chain.
