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A couple months ago, Wendy was asking about bending purple heart. I've been trying to do some purpleheart bindings and thought I'd share.

First of all, it bends very easily. I put it in my bender and spritzed some water on top of the blanket. Wood was completely dry.As soon as it started sizzling, cranked it down fast. Easy.

Got a little spring back. Put it back in the bender to cook a while. When I took them out, the color was changed. In most of the binding, the color was dark vivid purple. Really beautiful. But, at the waist where the contact and I assume heat transfer was greatest, the color was gone. It may have been there before the 2nd cooking. Can't say for sure. It kind of seems like the heat pulled the color out of the wood, concentrating it at the surface in most of the wood, but completely removing it on some places.

Made a second set. I cut, sanded and bent them right away. Tried to bend as fast as I could to minimize the heat bleaching. When I work purple heart, I lose the color, but it comes back a day or so later. But on this set, the heat again did something. It's been several days now and I don't see any purple coming back. It's just kind of boring grayish tan.

Third set is cut and waiting for the color to return before bending. If anyone has suggestions on what to try next, I'd appreciate it.

Thanks, Mike

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Mike Lindstrom

My experience with Purple heart in my carvings is that it oxidizes easily...but usually only skin deep. I usually see the color back with minor scrape or light sanding.
You may want to test scrape an area before installing as you may need to leave binding a bit more proud to compensate.
Kent Bailey

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Wood Creations by Kent A. Bailey
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http://www.kabart.com

If it will work with the bending, leave the sides a tad thick so you have some extra to sand/scrape. Hopefully there will be some color hiding inside.

You could experiment with a few bits of scrap...cook them until they lose the color (maybe have a clothes iron sit on it?) then sand/scrape down until you get color back.

-Matthew