wood type used in this cabinet

[eugene thomas]

I need to make cabinet for friend that matches this wood. not really sure what wood type. i know not oak but maybe stained cherry?259747
259748

[Dan Hahr]

Well, the moulding is oak, but the cabinet looks like poplar. It may be maple or birch. Was it homemade? Oak and poplar are about the only hardwoods you can find at our local big box stores.

Dan

[Michael W. Clark]

Sure looks like red oak from the pictures.

[Dave Zellers]

The trim is oak but not the cabinet. I'm going to guess poplar. Stained of course.

[Danny Hamsley]

Agree the trim is oak and the panel is poplar.

[Michael Dunn]

Agree the trim is oak and the panel is poplar.

+1. However, some more pics of the cabinet would be helpful.

[eugene thomas]

i never though about two different woods. anyway heres pic of that shows more of the wood below trim..259771

[Dave Zellers]

Kind of interesting that the lower crown has a glue line in the middle.

[Jeff Duncan]

Looks like a home made cabinet to me. I agree it's oak on the crown, but the cabinet looks like it could also be maple. If you have access to it it will be easier to tell as maple is so much denser than poplar.

JeffD

[Tony Joyce]

Crown is definitely Oak, case is probably S.Maple or Poplar. Most embossed mold is run in Poplar, S.Maple or Basswood.

Tony

[Michael W. Clark]

The cabinet does look like it could be Maple. It could be the camera angle, but there is some uneven coloration in the cabinet (blotching) which is one of maple's good/bad qualities.

Mike

[Tony Joyce]

There are a lot of woods that look like that. I doubt it's poplar; it's not a 'usual' choice externally, stained case goods.

It is more likely maple or birch.

A couple things to note: making this out of birch or maple will require some care to be taken during the coloring; this appears to be stained and maple and birch both blotch when stained.

Poplar may not be "usual" for you or your region, but it is used in some regions of the country. A lot of commercial furniture manufacturers use a mixture of species and stain them all to match. Secondly, Poplar is an excellent wood to emboss, which is what the carved looking mold to the right is(embossed). Highly unlikely that the embossed mold is Birch or Maple, surrounding woods, maybe.

[Prashun Patel]

I stand corrected. My bad.

[Wade Lippman]

Cabinet looks like sycamore to me.

[Peter Aeschliman]

Agreed- the crown is oak. In the first picture, the right-most vertical face frame piece looks a whole lot like poplar to me. It often has that ray-fleck/cross-grain pattern.

Poplar can have some wild color variations- purples, grays, yellows, etc. It can look really interesting, depending on what you're going for... But you might have to pick through the lumber a bit to find consistent color. I personally wouldn't recommend it for a stained project. It's awesome for painted projects though.

[Tony Joyce]

I stand corrected. My bad.

Please don't feel offended, you may be correct, my point is identifying wood from a photo is too subjective. Small shots don't always reveal the big picture. Seeing wood in person is the only way I feel confident identifying them. Raw wood and stained wood can look like two different species of woods sometimes, especially in a picture. I've seen birdseye poplar(only seen one batch in my forty yrs) come through our shop and with a little stain and a snapshot I'm sure most would say it's birdseye maple. Woods that are common in one area of the country may not be common in another region.

Just some food for thought.

[Prashun Patel]

Not at all. I think we all sometimes make the mistake of assuming our own experience is typical. I just make the mistake of blurting it out a lot!

[Joe Shinall]

Sometimes I'm so confident on something that I fool myself! Then I think, do I know that or did I really just BS that. ;)