Years ago, cocobolo was one of my favorite woods for turkey calls. I worked with cocobolo for years.....then something happened. My number came up and suddenly cocobolo was enemy #1....but no one told me or warned me beforehand. I had to experience the surprise of the full allergic reaction to understand the severity of what had happened; then I had to figure out which wood caused it. Then the other rosewoods one by one followed suit until now I have to practice extreme care even handling a rough cut board of cocobolo....or any of the rosewoods. If a rough cut board has a little wood dust on it, I had better be wearing some kind of glove protection. Yesterday I was talking with the manager of my local Woodcraft store, and he told me cocobolo is no longer on the list of woods available to the stores to stock for sale because of current Cites protections caused by overharvesting of cocobolo in the Amazon. I haven't purchased any cocobolo in years....I'd really be smart to send the cocobolo I have down the road for someone else to use, but it sure does make nice turkey calls. I have 2 pieces of cocobolo I'm trying to see if I can use now to make a couple of turkey calls without sending myself to the hospital. I guess I'll soon find out......LOL!!! Regardless, I don't see as many cocobolo turkey calls ....at least not as many as I use to see. That's a shame.......
Cocobolo is some of the prettiest wood out there imo.
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Cocobolo has been a favorite wood of all call makers for some time .... 1 of my 1st high end duck calls was from cocobolo over 50 years ago
I only turn cocobolo in the winter. So it doesn't soak in the sweat and enter my skin. A dust collector helps too. I have a nice collection of cocobolo cut in the 1940s. The raw pieces were hewn to remove the sapwood with an axe. I've never seen any with darker colors than this stock.
I think the Amazonian tulipwood I love so much is categorized as a rosewood as well, I guess I had better buy what I can find as soon as I can.
Be careful, brother !!!!
There's another call maker that you and I both know that got pretty well de-railed by a cocobolo reaction not too very long ago.
Use as many protective precautions as
you can.
once you get a reaction from coco bolo , it gets worse , every time you are in contect with it, sooner or later it will cause a major problem.
there other kind of wood besides rosewoods that also causes trouble
Quote from: doublespurs21 on July 30, 2023, 04:10:43 PM
once you get a reaction from coco bolo , it gets worse , every time you are in contect with it, sooner or later it will cause a major problem.
there other kind of wood besides rosewoods that also causes trouble
Yes,......morado to me is just as bad as cocobolo.
One of my favorite woods to turn, but getting more expensive to obtain by the day. Thankfully, I have not had a reaction to it yet, HRB on the other hand, lights me up. I look like I came out of a meth lab any time I get around that stuff.
Take care with it Marvin...Matt's advice on only turning in winter when there is no sweating is a great tip. Love a nice call from cocobolo!
Quote from: misfire on July 31, 2023, 07:45:00 AM
One of my favorite woods to turn, but getting more expensive to obtain by the day.
From what I was told the other day, the overharvesting and land clearing in the Amazon basin along with the updated Cites listing pretty much guarantees cocobolo will only be imported in extremely limited quantities for the foreseeable future.
Need to look no further than Cocobolo for one of the best call woods for performance and looks!
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