Rejuvinating Purpleheart

Purpleheart, while a great wood to turn and work with, does have one disadvantage. It tends to turn a rather brownish purple when turned or sanded. What a disappointment! However, all is not lost. Come on out for this demonstration of how to "repurple" purpleheart!

[@erin7931]

" As you can see over here I have the two boards..."

[@ShotgunAU]

Heat is the key, however I would recommend using a heat gun rather than a torch, more control and a more even result with a reduced risk of burning.

[@codybennink3339]

I did the same. Worked great.

[@BillKibby1]

All Purpleheart wood should bear a warning label "may cause depression in first time workers". Lacking an abundance of sunshine in Seattle, I've done some experimentation with alternate sources of assisting the re-purpleization and have had excellent success with cheap Chinese Ultra-Violet LED strips.

[@stevepyka758]

I found you video to be very helpful. I've been frustrated with the purple heart turning brown. I have a toaster oven that was given to me when my son went off to college. The dorms do not allow toaster ovens, so it's been in my garage. I pulled it out and baked my purpleheart blank at 350 degrees for 1 hour and it can out amazing! A nice deep purple color, just what I was looking for. Thanks for the tip!

[@bugdiverhb]

I just put some purple heart in the oven at 300 for a hour. Turned out great. Very deep purple.

[@richardhilton4929]

I’ve tried this a number of times and in my experience because of the thinness of the pen turning they almost always split

[@jonlanier_]

Says the heat from cutting and sanding turn it brown. Proceeds to put heat on it to turn it back to purple. Huh?

[@mikelakes3834]

Wow!! This is THE BEST purple heart video on KZbin!!! Thank you for sharing!

[@completefabrications6263]

Have been working extensively with purpleheart for several years, and getting it evenly right violet has definitely been a constant journey of reinvention and discovery. Obviously flame on your already cut and shaped pieces is a good way to get the surface nice and purple, plus, if you overburn, you can relighten with sanding. Personally I started with a much larger handheld propane torch, and found it works alot faster and across a wider work area than the little butane torch, so it may just come down to how big your piece is (though, even for pen blanks I definitely prefer the big one). When you need your boards nice and purple throughout, before you start working them, this is not really effective, and the best recommendations I've seen are to bake it in an oven (my own research has led me to 360-degrees for 60 minutes for any boards 3/4 to 5/4 inch thick). Today though, in considering that it's that sap/oil that does the "purpling" when it is heated and redistributed, I had a crazy idea while trying to think of a way to more rapidly heat the board throughout than the oven, so that the sap has less time to pool and leech out... ...so I threw some purpleheart in the microwave, just for about a minute, and hot damn. It had the same through-and-through purple as the oven, but the sap stayed far more distributed and less splotchy/veiny. If repeat testing gives me consistency, this will likely become part of my standard prep for working with purpleheart. Beyond just the best and most consistent coloring I've gotten from purpleheart, having tried everything from torches to ovens to sunlight to even a laser, it's impossibly fast, doing in about a minute what takes hours in the oven and days with sunlight, and better still, using a microwave seems downright sacrilegious in old-school carpentry. I'm never going back.

[@jackhazen2900]

How did it go

[@timothymisner1907]

Baked mine in oven twisted the snot out of it, don’t recommend, waste of wood, use a heat gun now still not great. Good luck!

[@mikem302]

I use a toaster oven never had a problem. But you have to start on a lower heat around 200 and bump it up from there every 30 mins

[@MrBritrider]

Hey very interesting. Would a heat gun produce the dramatic change in color as did the torch? I'm slightly confused though. Is it heat or light that changes the color? If I ran over it with a heat gun would I expect to see the color return after final sanding in my case.

[@mattmayes599]

Looks like the air and light exposure turns it brown and just the heat pulls the sap to the surface to bring the purple back from what I've seen so far.

[@clanderson0]

thanks larry

[@nal8503]

Does it return to brown eventually? Or is it possible to keep it purple?

[@kawvoy99]

Once you get the purple color back, which is easily done with 15-20 min in the sun - and you apply a clear finish which seals the wood - it stays purple. The inside of purple heart wood is actually brown - UV light turns it purple.

[@naturelife7536]

@@kawvoy99 does using polyurethane gloss seal the color?

[@mikem302]

@@naturelife7536 yes

[@jasonpromes764]

I heard a black light will help bring the color back. Is that true?

[@joyesills821]

I want to do my house in purple but want it to stay purple. Do u have suggestions how I could maintain that

[@nareshramratan7025]

Joye Sills if interested in the purple wood make contact with me [phone] in Guyana South American may 2018.

[@GregoryMichaelT]

Mother of god 14 minutes to say use heat.

[@yashasvibhuta4969]

simply put lemon juice an it back to purple really striking purple

[@WoodcraftSpokane]

We'll try it , , , thanks!

[@naturelife7536]

@@WoodcraftSpokane what about lemon oil?😊