Technical Details

Woods Used: Walnut and purple heart
Size: 5x2x0.5in
Finish: 400grit followed by hardwax oil (Rubio Monocoat)

Project Challenges and Lessons Learned:
Wood bowties are not particularly novel. You can find many examples online. But one with purple heart inlay and a rastered bear? I challenge you to find that! I made this bowtie for my wedding day which you can find all the details on here: Grizzly Bear Wedding. I want to use this project to comment on two very specific things I have learned:

1. Searching through the internet will tell you that if you use oil finishes you don't need to sand above 220grit because it won't make a difference in terms of the smoothness and/or it will close up the pores so oil can not absorb into the wood. In fact, Rubio Monocoat explicitly says 120grit is enough and never to sand past 150grit. It honestly never sounded right to me so I kind of always ignored it and went to 220grit. Never had a problem. For this project I went to 400grit. No problem. In fact, the look and feel was noticeably improved. I do not doubt there is some wood/oil combination out there which would not like what I am doing but so far this internet fact has not held up. I encourage you to test for yourself.

2. Purple heart looks awful after cutting/sanding. This is because the purple color we see is only present on the outside surface. The wood oxidizes when in contact with the surrounding air and UV to produce that deep purple. So when you cut into the wood you need to wait for the oxidation process to happen to get the color back. This is usually pretty quick (maybe a few days at room temperature sitting in the garage), but you can speed up the process with temperature and/or UV. You can also change the tone depending on what temperature you get the wood too. I like to put small pieces of wood in a toaster oven and start at low temps (150F), slowly increasing in order to darken the tone if I want. Be patient and experiment. For larger pieces that might not fit in an oven you can put them out in the sun, use a handheld heat gun, or just wait. Be mindful of wood warping, and take your time regardless of the method you use.