Purpleheart tearout

[BobRad]

I was turning some Purpleheart around 1.25" diameter (ok not really a pen) and I have no experience with this wood for turning, I've only used it for small parts on other things - but I have bunch of pen blanks waiting to be used. I was cutting it down to round with a skew (freshly sharpened) and it started sounding funny. On one side it was tearing out and looking ugly, and the rest was nice and smooth. Nothing weird about the grain though.

I switched to a Woodchuck carbide scraper and that worked fine to take off a 1/8" or so and make it all smooth.

Just wondering what is happening.

 

[bitshird]

Is the wood possibly too dry?? Glad a Woodchuck helped, but Purpleheart is usually such a tight grained wood it shouldn't tear out unless it was dry rotting or just way too dry to turn. But I think that would just make it harder.

 

[BobRad]

I doubt it's too dry - I trust the person I got the wood from.