[jm82792]

It seems to be great for 3d profiling since it holds detail(I have been using 1/32" for finishing) so well. It never chips, cracks, or splinters.
If your finish quality is good the stuff polishes up rapidly. Does anybody work with the stuff or Cumaru? Or does everybody just work with oak and such?

[louieatienza]

It seems to be great for 3d profiling since it holds detail(I have been using 1/32" for finishing) so well. It never chips, cracks, or splinters.
If your finish quality is good the stuff polishes up rapidly. Does anybody work with the stuff or Cumaru? Or does everybody just work with oak and such?

I've used the stuff on fretboards successfully and it does polish up nicely. However, there are a lot of species lumped together and sold as "ipe" that it would be tough to say if they all machine the same way.

Making musical instruments, I do use quite a few exotic hardwoods. For the most part, dense oily woods like most rosewoods work extrememly well.

[SquibLoad]

Yes, I agree. I've used it extensively for making 3d profiled bridges for classical guitars. All you say is correct. It is extremely hard, and I also use it for testing for feed rate before cutting other hardwoods like Brazilian or Indian rosewood. If my speeds work with Ipe, it'll work with the others and not overwhelm my vacuum clamping.

I like to think of it as soft aluminum. I made the mistake of testing with walnut/cherry early on in my bridge development, and Rosewood was enough different that the speeds I had tested with popped the blanks right off my vacuum fixture, particularily on cut entry. I wound up backing my speeds and DOC off a bit and slowing cut entries to fix it. Also added locating dowels which seemed to correct the problems. That Ipe is hard!

I haven't done a fretboard with Ipe yet, but I will shortly. I'd also like to try a back and side set of this. I think it would work great.

[jm82792]

So I'm not alone I wish there was a profession I was applying to what I'm making(boxes and such with 3d art), it's just a bit of probing the market to see what will happen. It seems from my bit of experiments that I can easily add detail with a 1/32" endmill and perhaps even more so with a smaller bit.

I know what you mean by lumped together, I was just given some "Iron Wood" that smells and looks just like Ipe so it's I'm assuming Ipe. I've had a bit of Cumaru, it also looks just like Ipe minus the fact that from what I see the end grain looks much more interesting since it's spotted.

Here is what I've been playing with, it's a few failures away from being a finished lid The nice polish is partially gone since the lacquer popped(?) the grain a little so another coat is required....