A Manual of the Hand Lathe / Comprising Concise Directions for Working Metals of All Kinds, Ivory, Bone and Precious Woods

by Egbert P. Watson

TAMARIND.

This wood is very unfrequently met with. I obtained, by chance, a large log of a wood-worker, and was highly pleased with it. It can scarcely be called variegated, except so finely as to be unnoticeable, but for a rich brown color and tint it is unapproachable. It is chocolate brown in hue, and so hard and close in fibre, as to rive like the husk of a cocoanut, while under a burnisher alone it polishes like ivory. It is seldom one meets with a wood so wholly satisfactory, in its general nature, for all kinds of work where a hard grain and fine surface is desirable.