Gentlemen: Since its summer and time to build outdoor furniture if you are so inclined, I thought I’d pass on my experience with using Ipe.Five or six years ago I decided to build an outdoor table and some chairs. Which wood? For out door use teak would be fine but very pricey. Same with white oak. Western red cedar ok but too soft to stand much abuse. VG fir again ok but good VG fir hard to find and not cheap anymore.

So while to resolve my dilemma, I happened to be down at my favorite lumber yard when a salesman pushing Ipe(under the commercial label of Iron Wood) as decking material was giving his pitch.I asked about using

 Ipe as outdoor furniture and he allowed that it should work fine.. The price was around $5 a board foot so I decided to give it a try.

I orderd various sizes of 1x4s, 2x4s, and 2x6s and was impressed and delighted in that all stock was clear, straight, and dead on dimensionally. The wood was easy to work with and mill. Construction was either mortice and tenon or screwed together. Nailing is not practical and predrilling required for all screws. The wood gives off an odd order when worked but is not harmful as far as I know. Ipe is dense and will not float and consequently heavy to work with and lug around. Iron Woods sell a sealer to coat the end grain to prevent checking and this was the only preservative applied.

After six years of being left outdoors year around in the rainy Pacific Northwest(Seattle area) I am impressed how well it has held up. All edges and joint lines are still knife sharp. The color has turned to an attractive silver while the undersides still retain most of their original brown color. Because of their weight the wind never budges them. For comparison some teak benches of the same age at a local golf course look much worse for the wear. Your experience may not match mine but I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Ipe.But I would buy Ipe that has been milled for deck material rather than try to mill  rough or  S2S material. A couple pictures of my project are attached .