What kind of wood is this?

[Mike williams54]

I was over visiting my parents today who live on a decent size little farm in Utah along the wasatch front, I was out wandering around and there was a tree that someone had just cut down to move from a little creek so I grabbed a little stump and decided to try out milling it down with my new ryobi bs360 rip bandsaw. I'm thinking it is just some cedar, but it's hard to tell, its very old, can't read the bark and no leaves around, but there is a ton of it in better shape that I can chop down anytime. I sawed off a little chunk to get to some of the sapwood grain for a pic. Here it is. Any help is great, I also have some maple for my roubo bench build, and I think some mountain mahogany.

[Pat Barry]

Not sure, but if its cedar you would know it from the smell for sure.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

Looks like a locust at first glance. Here the trees on a creek are usually willow, ash or a maple though. You can probably get a clue from the look of the standing trees around it.

[Mike williams54]

There is a few maples, several box elder trees, and what I think are ashes. There is also scrub oak everywhere on the hills near buy. I should also note the wood is incredibly hard, compared to walnut and white oak, which are the only woods I've worked with having just moved my collection of tools to my first house with a garage, oh and some Douglas fir my son and I made some toys out of. Locust would be neat, if I can find a couple pieces clean enough to make my vises with atleast. I didn't even think of smelling it, but it definitely has no cedar smell, or any really. But could it just be scent less due to age? I'm going to try and mill it after work, I'll plane down a piece a little to get a better pic. Thanks a lot for the help, I really appreciate it.

[Marc Seguin]

That's not any cedar I'm familiar with. If you say it's incredibly hard that would rule out any cedar for sure. Cedar is known for being soft and aromatic.

I'm not from around Utah at all but the wood does look familiar from my travels to Arizona. Is mesquite a possibility ?

[Larry Edgerton]

Looks like red elm to me.

[Bryan Vaughan]

um, firewood?

[Mike williams54]

I didn't see any other mesquite in that area, firewood is a possibility, except the chimney flue in the house I just bought is collapsed..�� im positive it's not cedar, I'm retarded for thinking it was, I just saw red and jumped to it. This log is rough shape, but there is an entire 50' tree that's about 2-3 wide and straight as an arrow that has been dead a while, I'd like to turn one of my sheds into a little kiln and start drying some lumber for down the road.

[Bryan Vaughan]

Mike, I wasn't serious about it being firewood, I was just kidding. I don't know what kind of wood it is. Sorry about that.

Bryan

[Mike williams54]

I got a couple 4-5"X2.5-3" boards out of it, this stuff is really hard, but my bandsaw has a huge leeson 2hp motor that sliced right through it, I may be able to make my end vice with them, anyway, here are some pics all milled and planed. And a couple pics of my first ever dovetails in some old solid walnut flooring I picked up for a couple dollars.

[John Vernier]

From your pictures it's a ring-porous or semi r-p wood. Locust or elm are both possibilities. My experience is that elm is not super hard, locust is (relatively speaking). It also reminds me of hickory or pecan although I don't know if you will find those in Utah.

[Bryan Vaughan]

That looks nice Mike. I'll need to learn how to do the dove tails. I've got an Incra Box Joint Jig
I used this Christmas on a Spice rack for my daughter.
I am making a drawer for a cabinet I'm building for the trash in the kitchen. A rollout drawer
and dove tails would be nice for that but I don't have time to learn it now.
How do you attach thumbnails?

Bryan

[Mike williams54]

Locust are the trees that have the big seed things right? Maybe half the size and shape of a flat banana... There was a few of those on the ground near by, obviousley not from this tree, but could have been the same type, they were about 20' apart. And yeah, it's really hard, can't even make a mark with my finger nail, which I hear is the most accurate way to test hardness:cool:. Dovetails aren't hard to learn, making them look good will be. You could watch one YouTube video on measuring out the spaces and have it down. Im posting pics from my phone, up above where you type their is two icons that look like globes, to the right of them is a picture of a picture, that one will let you pull a pic from your computer(phone) or type in a url to a link.

[Bryan Vaughan]

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Ok, it looks like this worked.

Thank you Mike.

[Judson Green]

How do you attach thumbnails?

Bryan

From quick reply, click on the picture of the tree...
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Then click the button to choose a picture
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Choose a picture (notice the circled red area). Then click on the words upload file (underlined blue)
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And say the magic word "Abracadabra!"

Sometimes your picture might be to large then you'll need to resize them before trying to post.

Hope this helps.

[Erik Loza]

Mike: Alligator Juniper???? The bark...

Erik Loza
Minimax

[Bryan Vaughan]

Thanks Judson. I found I had to use the "Go Advanced" button before I could get my tree to
brouse. The end results weren't pictures I could see in the post but links instead.

Abracadabra, poof!

[Bryan Vaughan]

305273305274

[Judson Green]

Thanks Judson. I found I had to use the "Go Advanced" button before I could get my tree to
brouse. The end results weren't pictures I could see in the post but links instead.

Abracadabra, poof!

I'm not sure how to do it "Go Advanced", but your pictures are needing to be downloaded to my tablet before I can see em.
Suggest you search out how to do it, there's a tech support forum first one on the main page.

[Mike williams54]

Mike: Alligator Juniper???? The bark...

Erik Loza
Minimax I don't know about that, no other junipers in the area, and I'm about positive the only reason the bark looks the way it does is due to age. It's deceiving in pics, but it's just old and cracked.

[Erik Loza]

Any pics of the actual tree? Just curious.

Erik Loza
Minimax

[Steve Rozmiarek]

Yep, that's locust. We have two species here, honey and black. I don't know which is which, but one has thorns, the other doesn't. The one without the thorns seems to have more of those pods. I did the same thing you are doing with a piece of it. I turned my little boards into rope swing seats. It's got very good rot resistance, so I figured that would be a good choice. I'll let you know in 50 years or so I guess. Last I saw, the seats still look great. It's sure heavy. I like how it looks, different than the normal red oak enough that most notice, but pleasingly similar. Would like to try a project in it some day.

[Mike williams54]

I didn't get any pics of the tree itself, but I agree with Steve, probably a locust, it's been dead a long time and although it cracked a bit, there was really no rot, there were other locusts in the same area, and it's very hard and heavy. Hopefully the boards I got out of it will be big enough for my vises. Otherwise I'll be milling some more. Thanks for the help, this forum has been a wealth of knowledge for me.

[Brent Ring]

Looks like an elm

[Michael Weber]

Nothing I enjoy more than a good consensus:)

[Mike williams54]

Yeah, but locust sounds cooler. And from what I've read elm isn't very hard.