Please Help, What is this wood?

[Brock Martens]

Hi everyone, I think this is my first post on sawmill, although I have been creeping for quite a while.

I'm trying to figure out what this wood is. The source of the wood is somewhat of a mystery. A friend of mine has a friend who's father had 60 4x4's in three foot lengths next to the house. Well he past on and now no one seems to know where this wood originated, although my neighbor suspects that it was used as packing material from the railroad. Every piece has 4 nail holes on one side - 2 on each end. There are a bunch of different species although most of them are mahogany and, judging by the smell, eucalyptus.

Here's the mystery wood:
297237 297238297239297240

In the first picture, that's walnut to the left and maple overexposed to the right (and tigerwood on the far right past the MDF).
At first I thought that it was padouk or bubinga, but I haven't been able to find examples with the strange grain patterns visible in the second and third photo. It's very heavy, I would guess somewhere around purpleheart for specific gravity. This piece is 2.5"x3" approx.

Any thoughts?

[Paul Hingco]

Paduk???????

[Andrew Hughes]

My guess from a thousand mile away Is Apitong.

[Yonak Hawkins]

If you figure or find out what it is I'd love to know. I made a couple of small things out of some of that wood a few of years ago. I have no idea where it came from but it could very well have been some kind of shipping or packing material.

[Brock Martens]

Hmm, the grain pattern is very similar to apitong (which I have never heard of before today). Have you ever seen any with the strange grain figure such as in the second pic?

[John Coloccia]

I could be Chechen.

[Andrew Hughes]

Yes the funny looking figure is what caught my eye,Does it have a nice spicy smell.From the end grain?

[Bill Neely]

Could it be Bubinga? It's hard, open pored, streaked red. Just a guess - I'm no expert.

[Peter Quinn]

Cumaru? Does it smell a but like a barnyard when cut? Cumaru has a vaguely horse manure aroma when cut, same grain, same range of color. Very heavy and dense.

[Bob Grier]

Although I don't know what it is my first thought was that it looks like sapele.

[Dan Hunkele]

African Mahogany is my best guess.

[peter gagliardi]

Brazilian Cherry/Jatoba, or even Santos Mahogany are possibilities as well. The Santos has a very fragrant balsam -like aroma when cut. You can't mistake it for any other wood, once you smell it.

[Tom M King]

A friend of mine is an engineering consultant for railroad track failures. We were having a discussion about different wood densities, when I was talking about using Live Oak for door sills on an old house. He told me that some railroad did some experiments using other woods to be able to get away from creosote, and that one wood was so hard that they couldn't drive spikes in it. This could be some leftovers from that. I believe he told me it was Apitong, but that's from old memory that could have been tainted by reading previous posts. I'll ask him when I see him, but it will be a while.

[Sean Troy]

Could be Etimoe

[Joe Kieve]

You might check here...http://www.hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/

[rudy de haas]

It looks like jatoba - there are several varities, some harder and/.or redder then others. Jatoba, like teak, contains some silt/sand, so if your tools
blunt quicker than you expect for the hardness of the wood - it's jataoba. Also, look for a piece with a major knot - jataob often cracks a bit right around
the knots as it is drying.

On the +++ side: it's wonderful stuff. Try a little pennofin ("brazilian rose wood oil") rubbed on a sanded bit and you'll be astonished at how
rich, red, and figured it looks.

[Chris Padilla]

I'll postulate mesquite.

[Brock Martens]

Really all great suggestions. The one thing that I can't find in any examples of these woods is the strange grain patterns. All in all I think the winner might be Red Cumaru. Here's a pic that I believe to be the closest to what I have:
297260

If anyone can find and post a picture of a wood that has similar grain inclusions, I'd be very interested to hear! I'll also send it to HobbitHouse's "mystery wood" site, so maybe I'll find out a definite answer. Either way, It's going as a laminate in my faux neck-through bass!

Thanks!

[Wade Lippman]

I would say either mesquite or bubinga, depending on what color it really is.
But it could be any of 50 very different woods. I have several pieces of furniture made out of unknown tropical woods I have bought at auctions; it really doesn't matter what it is, just make something nice out of it.

[Dan Hintz]

The grain pattern reminds me of a palm...

[Paul Hinds]

Many years ago I bought a plank of what I'm pretty sure is the same wood. I bought it from a reliable vendor under the name narra but when I got it home I wasn't so sure so I called back to double check and the wood expert there swore that it was narra (Pterocarpus indicus). BUT ... last year I started doing very detailed analysis of end grain with a 10X loupe and I found that it is not narra. You can see what I'm talking about on my web site [use "visit home page" under my profile if you're not familiar with my site].

If you want to send me a small sample, I can double-check that it is the same as my mystery wood and if not, whether or not I can ID it. Alternatively, if you can get me a closeup of the end grain, I might be able to tell without seeing the actual wood.

[Ronald Blue]

It strongly resembles cocobolo in the grain structure especially the end grain. wood-database.com/lumber-identification/hardwoods/cocobolo/
The end grain varies a little from the photos in the link but it looks close. The samples you have likely are quite old and the wood much more abundant then it is today. I might be way off but it reminds me of some I turned for pens.

[Andrew Hughes]

If it is Aptiong it will warp bad,The stuff I had was some of the worst reaction wood I have experienced.Hope you can get some good use out of it,looks nice,so many different woods that can come out of South America.i bet some are just too poisenoius to for us to use.

[john lawson]

+1 for either chechen or black palm

[John Coloccia]

I thought it was very reminiscent of Palm too, but I didn't think the end grain looked right.

[Peter Quinn]

Really all great suggestions. The one thing that I can't find in any examples of these woods is the strange grain patterns. All in all I think the winner might be Red Cumaru. Here's a pic that I believe to be the closest to what I have:
297260

If anyone can find and post a picture of a wood that has similar grain inclusions, I'd be very interested to hear! I'll also send it to HobbitHouse's "mystery wood" site, so maybe I'll find out a definite answer. Either way, It's going as a laminate in my faux neck-through bass!

Thanks!

I don't have pics but I've seem similar inclusions in cumaru, and I handled a lot of it at the the last job I was in. Problem with online wood ID is everyone thinks it looks like the closest species they know best, my self included. But in this case it may very well be cumaru. Or one of the many other reddish brown south american hardwoods that reach our shores. Most of the pics you may find wont have any of the inclusions, I shy away from calling them figure as they are not nearly as complete or compelling as something like curly maple or pommele sepele. More like defects or "character" than figure. I used to cut those parts out at my last job, making millwork items like stair treads, clients don't generally want those sorts of lines.

Cumaru varies in color from a light tan to a very dark brown, bulk of what I saw was a reddish brown with grain very similar to your pics, weight and density similar to purple heart, and oh what a lovely aroma! We used to say that santos smelled like a french whore and cumaru smelled like a french horse. Santos is much more red with a grain similar to mahogany but similarly hard to cumaru.

[Mel Fulks]

Never heard of apitong before. Brought a piece of bubinga over to computer and I think your wood could be that. Matches
grain pattern, color, and light color speckles. Look at google photos.

[Dan Hunkele]

Go to Google images and search

interlocked african mahogany end grain or interlocked ipe end grain

They both have end grain similar to your picture. Purple Heart does too.

[Paul Hinds]

The grain pattern reminds me of a palm...

A little, but when you look at it up close, it's nothing like palm.