NO experience with that wood, but I have worked some African tropicals that pick up the silica like that. I had good luck sparing my tools by buying a really coarse belt sander belt, like 40 grit (or 60?) and gluing strips of it to a 1x2 slat for a file. Works great on REALLY hard woods, too. I once had a block of mun ebony my best rasp would just skip off.
