I have been milling the lumber for the top of my workbench. I blogged about it previously here, The Bench Blog Bench and here, The Workbench Build Begins.
I was running the boards over my jointer to clean and straighten one face. As the rough-sawn material was removed, it uncovered this in one of the boards.
I found a bright purple area in one end of this board.
The photos don’t quite do it justice. The purple is very bright. It doesn’t run throughout the whole length of the board and is only present at one end.
Here’s a better view of the purple area.
The purple is very vivid.
The color is strongest nearest to the sap wood. While is shows on the right edge of the board as seen below, it can’t be seen on the left edge. The left edge will be on the top when I do the glue up, so it wont be visible in the bench (unless you crawl under it).
The color looks most vibrant closer to the sap wood.
I’ve used a lot of Doug Fir previously, but I have never encountered this color before. Granted this is my first experience with custom milled lumber that I have dried myself. All the other Doug Fir that I have used has been kiln dried 2 X lumber. I did a little searching online but couldn’t find any other similar images.
I think the purple is kind of cool looking. It might be quite striking in the right project if the color distribution was a little more consistent. However, this board is destined for my workbench top.
Have any of you ever seen this before?
