Brazilian redwood?

[GordonA]

First I have to say - long time lurker before i finally purchased, first time poster.

Machine straight from Sears was pretty much DOA. Power supply issue and Z-axis stalls. Just got it back from being fixed in Texas and have been carving the last 2 days with no problems. I hear it humming away downstairs as I write this. Loving it.

Carved quite a few things on old fence slats as well as new pine and very happy with my results. On to my question......

I've got a bunch of Brazilian redwood from a friend's old deck. this is *VERY* dense wood. Does anyone familiar with this wood know or have a guess if it would would be too dense for carving? I thought I'd ask here instead of just trying it out because I'd much rather have someone tell me "No, don't be stupid, it's way too dense." than to ruin my bit/machine.

Lots of smart people on here from what I've seen in my lurking so I'm hoping to get an answer either way.

Thanks in advance.

Gordon

[liquidguitars]

try a scrap first but some of the fine red type wood dust can trash a unit in about a day.

LG

[GordonA]

The dust and the hardness were my concerns. I've done some cutting of this wood and the dust is terrible. "trash a unit in about a day" is not a term i like to hear in relation to my machine so unless i hear a differing opinion, i'll probably just play it safe and use this wood in other places.

Thanks for the input.

[upcedar]

Gordon, First off I would do research on lumber from South America, it's not because the c/w will die, but you might get a lung infection from the dust and die too! There are wood's that never should be cut with out dust protection or mask, thanks to Mother Nature.
On the other part of your post you said ' I could hear the c/w from the kitchen'. This is a serious machine, it's not a washing machine that you can walk away from... Would you leave a table-saw run with nobody watching it? Gordon-I'm NOT slamming you but I always think safety. Best Ric 8-)

[Jon Jantz]

First of all, welcome to the board and the world of carving.

Secondly, I would just try a small carving on a piece and see how the machine acts. If it sounds like it is laboring or you see some other problem, just stop the machine by opening the cover or hitting 'STOP.' I don't see why it shouldn't work.

Like has been said, a problem may be the dust, but maybe you could rig up a dust collection system. A bunch of guys have done different things that you can find in the forum by using the 'Search'.

And Ric.... are you serious? I routinely carve designs that take 3-4 hours to carve. I do them during the day, and I am NOT going to sit out there the whole time baby-sitting my machine when I should be working... I can hear it operating and if it quits or sounds funny, I can get to it pretty quickly. It's not like being 30 feet closer to it is going to prevent a catastrophe.. in fact, I'd rather not be close to it if it slings a bit... hehe.

[RanUtah]

It would be nice to have a list posted of the various woods that work better in the machine and are favored by most operators or is there already such an animal?

[Gman_Ind]

I found that the dense dark woods will carve nice, but can produce fine dust even with decent dust collection. I have raster carved Lypus and it clogged up my optical board sensor and stained the lens, I had to remove the lens after cutting the Lyptus. I now use compressed air after each project to clear out the sensor.
MDF will also produce fine dust and has glue and possible debris embedded into it that could dull a bit faster than normal.
I would recommend a test piece to see how it carves, make sure you use dust precautions, and make sure you use your table saw to make the sides parallel before carving.