The archives have a number of folks who were thinking about using “Brazillian Cherry” or Jatoba as a replacement for teak – or for outdoor furniture. I have recently acquired a fair bit of a mix of length, width and thickness of jatoba and I have a couple of outside projects – including replacing some teak on my boat. I would love to hear from anyone on their success or failures with it – including UV resistance, glue used and (marine) finishes applied to keep the colour, if any, and how well they worked…
Many thanks
Gavin Pitchford
Replies
Gavin, jatoba has excellent decay resistance, but if you use it in a marine application, be sure it's above the waterline. It's susceptible to marine borers.
I'm not into boats and can't help you on choice of finishes. The only "boat" we ever owned was an aluminum canoe.
Do you ipe or jatoba? Ipe is a closer wood to teak than jatoba. While jatoba is an excellent outdoor wood, ipe is even harder and more weather resistant.
I grabbed a "skid" full at an auction 2 months ago - a mix of everything from 1x2, 1X3 and 1X6 to 2x4 and 2X6 and 4X4, from 30" to 72" long for $100. Cdn. Probably 100 bf. total. So I do mean jatoba. At the time I thought it was jatoba, but wasn't positive - just thought it looked really nice. Then I launched the boat on the weekend and discovered a few areas where the winter had done some damge and thought maybe it wastime to replace some of the teak. Decorative rather than structural.
Gavin Pitchford
Like real cherry, jatoba changes color rather radically. It starts off darker than black cherry and gets darker from there. I have seen some wood floors that were pretty dramatic after about a year of sunlight.
The stuff I have seen is not too much like teak in starting color or as it ages.
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