Lignum Vitae - Uses

Uses

Due to its density, cricket bails, particularly "heavy bails" used in windy conditions, are sometimes made of lignum vitae. It is also sometimes used to make lawn bowls, croquet mallets and skittles balls. The wood also has seen widespread historical usage in mortars and pestles and for wood carvers' mallets.

It was the traditional wood used for British police truncheon until recently, due to its density (and strength), combined with the relative softness of wood compared to metal, thereby tending to bruise or stun rather than simply cut the skin.

The belaying pins and deadeyes aboard the USS Constitution and many other sailing ships were made from lignum vitae. Due to its density and natural oils, they rarely require replacement, despite the severity of typical marine weathering conditions.

Due to lignum vitae's toughness, it can also be used as a lap in the process of cutting gems. The wood is covered with powdered industrial diamond, attached to a spindle, and used to smooth rough surfaces of gems.

Master clockmaker John Harrison used lignum vitae in the bearings and gears of his pendulum clocks and his first three marine chronometers (all of which were large clocks rather than watches), since the wood is self-lubricating. The use of lignum vitae eliminates the need for horological lubricating oil; 18th-century horological oil would get gummy and reduce the accuracy of a timepiece under unfavourable conditions (including those that prevail at sea).

For this same reason it was widely used in water lubricated shaft bearings for ships and hydro-electric power plants. Commonly used in ship's propeller stern-tube bearings, due to its self-lubricating qualities, until the 1960s with the introduction of sealed white metal bearings. According to the San Francisco Maritime National Park Association website, the shaft bearings on the WWII submarine USS Pampanito (SS-383) were made of this wood. The aft main shaft strut bearings for USS Nautilus (SSN-571), the world's first nuclear powered submarine, were composed of this wood. Also, the bearings in the original 1920s turbines of the Conowingo Hydroelectric Plant on the lower Susquehanna River were made from lignum vitae.

The United Railroads of San Francisco (an ancestor of the San Francisco Municipal Railway) began installing Lignum Vitae insulators to support heavy feeder wires for their trolley system in 1904. The reason for the adoption of Lignum Vitae was its ability to withstand the high stress at high temperature, a problem posed by heavy cables turning corners heated by high current overloads. Many of these insulators survived the 1906 earthquake and fires, despite temperatures high enough to soften the iron poles and melt the copper cables. Many of these lasted into the 1970s with a small number remaining in service into the late 2000s (most of these came down when the overhead 600V DC feeders were replaced with a new system of underground feeders, the rest coming out of service as aging crossarms supporting the remaining overhead feeders were replaced).

Greenheart was used to make the acclaimed Hardy's Greenheart fly fishing rods, by Hardy Brothers of Alnwick.