Purpleheart isn't purple

[Fatcat161]

I've turned two pens of purpleheart and both are more brown than purple. I cut the blanks from a 6" board and the exposed edge is gray/brown but the newly cut edges are a nice purple. Once the pen is turned it is not nearly as purple. I finish them with Myland's friction polish. Any ideas what I need to do to get a nice purple pen?

 

[Great Googly Moogly]

i've always heard that you can expose the wood to sunlight and it will turn more purple. I suppose this means that you have to rotate the pen when exposing it so it doesn't have an uneven color...

fwiw

 

[Kinger]

Leave them out in the sunlight for a little while, seems they purple up with some good light on them or there is a way to torch them and heat them up but not to sure about that. theres a youtube vid somewhere about doing that

 

[brownsfn2]

I have tried both torch and sunlight. Sunlight works so much better.

The one thing you want to make sure of is that if you cut the blank diagonal or across the grain then make sure the blank does not heat up too much in the sun. It will shrink exposing the tube and will be much smaller than you intended.

 

[Dustygoose]

Yep. Sunlight

 

[maxwell_smart007]

It has life cycles....it will turn purple with sun exposure, and eventually turn brown...

I think it's the heat from the sun that does it, just as it is the heat from turning that turns it brown as well sometimes...

 

[DMGill]

I turned some purple heart barrels then just left them to finish curing. It was a week or so before I got back to them and they had turned purple again by themselves. Be sure to give them a good coat of UV protection wax. Purple heart is funny, you can set it in the sun when it's brown to turn it purple, but if you put it in the sun when it's purple, it'll turn brown.

 

[Fatcat161]

I thought UV made purpleheart turn dark.

 

[Kindaso]

In my own experience, try taking a cloth and slowly(and I mean very slowly) drag it across the the purple heart with lathe speed at least 1500rpms. This will turn the blank very dark purple and may even burn some places. Now, take some 320 grit and sand. The more you sand, the lighter the purple. Or perhaps you want to strategically put burned black stripes into the blank, which I have done and it looks GORGEOUS! Once you put a CA finish on the purple heart its beautiful and definitely a crowd favorite in my experience.
-Jake

 

[its_virgil]

There are many many nicer woods than purple heart. But, I wish you well and good luck with this wood.
Do a good turn daily!
Don