Question about wood - Red Heart?

[TAIrving]

Background: I am not having any luck with red woods.  I discovered that I am sensitive to Bloodwood, it makes my skin itch.  So I bought a piece of wood, supposedly Redheart, off of eB*y,  But I am questioning what I actually got.  

It is red and it polishes up to a very nice sheen.  But it is very dense, see the picture, it sinks in water.  I calculate the density to be something around 1250 KG/M^3 or a relative density around 1.2.  It is hard to cut.  It does ok cross-grain.  But along the grain it is slow cutting and it smokes.  And after I cut it along the grain, it sticks together.  I have to use a hammer to separate it after cutting along the grain.  I think it is releasing and burning resin that glues the wood back together.  And it is quite hard on blades.  I have had a blade go dull after perhaps 6" of cutting.  

Per "The Wood Database", this piece of wood looks like the post for Redheart but is much denser and harder.  Redheart | The Wood Database (Hardwood)

Any thoughts on this wood?  

[FrankEV]

I have used Padauk, a very dark Red wood, which is quite hard also.  Just received some Bloodwood, but havn't cut it yet. Seems very hard also.  Purpleheart, Yellowheart and even Orange Osage are all quite hard.

Cutting these rich color hardwoods along the grain is a time consuming task, as you must go VERY VERY slowly and it dulls the blade quickly. I've had to change my blade up to 3 times cutting one long piece of Purpleheart.

I have a pattern for a Cardinal that I plan to do soon and will be trying the Bloodwood.

 

Edited March 9 by FrankEV

[JTTHECLOCKMAN]

The wood in the data base is indeed Redheart. The wood you show does not look like Redheart It looks too orange from your photo. That leads me to believe either Padauk or Bacote. Red heart is actually easy to cut. I used a #5 silver reverse FD blade with no problems. It is actually a very pretty wood. But will darken to a brown over time if not top coated. Example

 

 

 

Edited March 10 by JTTHECLOCKMAN

[BadBob]

I recently cut a lot of padauk, and other than dulling the blades a bit faster, I had no issues with it.

Ipe is the only wood I have had issues with being hard. I have ruined bandsaw blades and broken teeth on a circular saw blade trying to resaw ipe.  Ipe is not rednot red.