Help Identifying Wood Species

[Will Hon]

I was running some trees through the bandmill last night, and came across this one which I can't identify. Any help would be appreciated. It came out of the woods behind my house in Central Missouri if that helps. Best,
-wh

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[Caleb Larru]

Looks like Cherry. A pic of the bark would also help.

[Will Hon]

Caleb,
Found the log on the ground, no bark left on it... figured it was rotted out, but when I took the chainsaw to one end it was solid. Probably a little degrade based on how long its probably been down, but not terrible.

[Caleb Larru]

It doesn't take long for a log to start losing it's bark so it may not have been down as long as you think. It sure looks like cherry to me though. How do you like that hudson mill? I looked at them before I bought a Woodmizer.

[Will Hon]

So far so good, although I haven't been using it for long enough to right a big review, but it has cut straight and operated great since we set it up. We got a stupid good deal on it, basically half price new right from Hud-Son. I was really looking at the Timberking Mills from here in KC, but I was getting everything the 1220 has delivered to more door for $3k less...

[joe milana]

Definitely cherry in that part of the state.

[Dan Hahr]

Looks like sweetgum to me. It can lay on the ground a while and still stay solid. Has a real sweet smell when you saw it.
Dan

[joe milana]

Ahh, another good guess. Plenty of those in these parts as well, 'Cept I thought it had a little more pronounced brown streaking in it. See any of these on the ground?

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Looks like sweetgum to me. It can lay on the ground a while and still stay solid. Has a real sweet smell when you saw it.
Dan

[Tim Howell]

I cleared an easement and seen some wood like that. It called Wild Black Cherry. Makes little 1/2" berries in clusters, the leaves produce Cyanide when they start turning brown in the fall. They keep them out of cow pastures around here.

[Caleb Larru]

Looks like sweetgum to me. It can lay on the ground a while and still stay solid. Has a real sweet smell when you saw it.
Dan

It would have more brown in it if it were sweetgum. At least that is what it looks like around here. I'd put my money on cherry. Looks just like that when fresh cut.

[Paul Symchych]

May help with cherry ID but how about putting a couple of strips of masking tape on it and putting the wood out in the sun for a week or so. Pull the tape off and see if there is the pronounced color change typical of cherry.

[Luther Oswalt]

That looks to be a Sweet Gum ... warps so much it seems to walk away!
Leo

[Brian Tymchak]

Any takers for Red Elm? Gum would smell like terpentine when cut. But it could be Red Gum too.

A picture of a clean end cut could help to id it.

[Charlie Ross]

Hard to tell without seeing the bark or end grain, but I’ve cut some rock elm that looked like that in Wisconsin. It was fire red when we ran it through the mill. Brian, we called it rock elm, might be the red elm your talking about. Doesn’t Black Cherry have more sap wood than that? Anyway, that’s my guess?

[Brian Tymchak]

Hard to tell without seeing the bark or end grain, but I’ve cut some rock elm that looked like that in Wisconsin. It was fire red when we ran it through the mill. Brian, we called it rock elm, might be the red elm your talking about. Doesn’t Black Cherry have more sap wood than that? Anyway, that’s my guess?

Well Charlie, I had to resort to Google to look up Rock Elm. I've never heard of that. Wikipedia shows them as distinct species. Rock Elm is Ulmus thomasii and Red Elm is Ulmus rubra. Learned something today after all.. :)