Padouk wood shows a quite dramatic change between its super-red heartwood and its yellow-creamish sapwood. I had a 8 x 4x 8 inch leftover with a lot of sapwood, unusable for outdoor construction, so I put it to use in a small, demonstrative, 6 x 4x 3″ jewellery box for a hard-to-please teener.
For the lid, I used some wild cherry (“merisier”) bark, which I first steam-ironed and flattened between two sheets of plywood, and then veneered on the encased padouk top.
So, now the box shows the three elements of a tree ‘all-in-one’: heartwood, sapwood and bark. Finishing is done with blonde dewaxed shellac and 3 layers of wax.