Construction of the 36-foot motor sailor SEA BEAST under the direction of Instructor Ben Kahn is moving right along.
Here, the stem rabbet is being cut by student Jeff Lydston.
The wood is purple heart – here are excerpts from Wikipedia about the wood:
“Peltogyne, commonly known as purpleheart, amendoim or amaranth, is a genus of 23 species of flowering plants in the family Fabaceae, native to tropical regions of Central and South America, where they occur in tropical rainforests. Purpleheart comes from the rain forests of Brazil, Guyana, and Suriname.
Purpleheart is an extremely dense and water resistant wood. It is ranked one of the hardest and most stiff of the woods in the world. Some people claim it is so durable that it can be used as truck decking.[2] The trees are prized for their beautiful heartwood which, when cut, quickly turns from a light brown to a rich purple color. Exposure to ultraviolet (UV) light darkens the wood to a brown color with a slight hue of the original purple. The longer the wood is exposed to UV lights (sunlight), the colour of purple slowly changes from a light purple to a substantially chocolate-purple colour.[3] This effect can be minimized with a finish containing a UV inhibitor. The dry wood is very hard and dense with a specific gravity of 0.86 (54 lb/ft^3 or 860 kg/m^3). Carbide blades are recommended when working with purpleheart wood. The wood is also known as amaranth and violet wood.”
