What wood is this? - Very Old - Stanley #25 level...

[rick bear]

Can anyone identify what wood this is? It seems much too dark for mahogany and a little light in weight for rosewood. My guess is Honduran Rosewood. The wood is part of a very old, 19th century Stanley #25 level. The photo shows a cross section taken from the middle of the level.


Thanks - Rick

223989

[joe milana]

American elm?

[Brent VanFossen]

The grain looks like mahogany. If you look at the upper part of the photo where the wood is darker, both the grain and the color look like mahogany. At the interface of the two colors, it looks like the lower portion was stained or dyed a yellower color. Whoever owned this didn't do a great masking job, as some of the yellow slopped onto the darker upper part.

I say it's mahogany.

[William Nimmo]

looks to me like Imbuya. sometimes spelled Imbuia
A little lighter in weight and less red than Mahogany. Has a distinct smell when cut. I just used a bunch of this stuff and loved it.

[Chris Rosenberger]

I agree with Brent. It is mahogany.

[david brum]

Just imagine a time when there was so much real mahogany that you could make carpentry tools out of it!

[David Helm]

Yes mahogany. Back in the day (when young) I used mahogany to trim a house. There were quite a variety of colors in the wood, and it was all from the same batch.

[rick bear]

Yes - I'm leaning toward Mahogany; I ran across this observation in an article by Don Rosebrook (author - Collecting Levels by Don Rosebrook):

"H.M. Poole made a lot of levels later with beautiful Cuban mahogany, a heavy, sleek wood with purple highlights, and sometimes used one-sided, double-scalloped brass sideviews. He also used Cuban mahogany with such character that most people mistake it for rosewood,"

I think I was thrown off by the darkness, light & dark streaks, tight grain, and silky finish - the photo doesn't do justice to some of the highlights.

I have disassembled this level to do some clean-up. I also thought it might have been stained; I have a cherry wood example of the same level that was heavily stained. I really couldn't detect any signs of stain, but I could be wrong.

Thanks to everyone for taking a look and sharing their opinions - Rick

[rick bear]

it looks like the lower portion was stained or dyed a yellower color.

Brent, I'm taking it back. Upon closer inspection inside the cutouts, you can see traces of an interface between the natural wood and where somebody applied a stain or dye. At this point, that natural woods is as dark as the stained wood.

- Rick

[Bill White]

I know what it is. Its called "shutupnuseit". An exotic wood often found in high end antique tools bought at a bargain.
(Is there a smilie somewhere in there?)
Bill