Wood ID help needed

[Pat Scott]

I got this piece of wood at the AAW Symposium in KC. A local had brought in some wood for one of the demonstrators, and this piece was left over. I don't think the local wanted to carry it back home so he gave it to me. I asked him what kind of wood it was but he didn't know. I'm guessing Pear based on the light grain and slight pinkish color, but that's just a guess. Sorry for the cell phone pics. Thanks.
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[Tim Leiter]

In my opinion it could be Maple. Some of the Maple I have has a bit of pink on the interior.
Tim.

[Allan Dozier]

The bark looks like plain old red oak. Did it have kind of a sour smell?

[George Guadiane]

In my opinion it could be Maple. Some of the Maple I have has a bit of pink on the interior.
Tim.
Looks like maple to me too.

[Thomas Canfield]

Sure looks like a bunch of Bradford Pear wood that I have that has air dried without being sealed. The bark also looks like the pear. I think you will find darker wood with fine grain when you turn off the weathered surfaces. The bark inclusion line shown in the 4, 5, and 6 photo also look familiar.

[Dale Miner]

Pear based on bark, grain, and color.

[Harold Balzonia]

I turn a lot of Bradford pear and that is a sure thing... it's easy to turn but usually needs a subtle highlight. 363053363054

[John K Jordan]

I got this piece of wood at the AAW Symposium in KC. A local had brought in some wood for one of the demonstrators, and this piece was left over. I don't think the local wanted to carry it back home so he gave it to me. I asked him what kind of wood it was but he didn't know. I'm guessing Pear based on the light grain and slight pinkish color, but that's just a guess. Sorry for the cell phone pics. Thanks.



Wood and bark often look similar. Minimize the wild guesses by shaving a tiny area of the end grain and looking at it with a small hand magnifier. (The instructions are on the wood ID page of the Wood Database.) You can first see if the wood is ring porous, diffuse porous, or something in between. By comparing what you see to photo of candidate species in the Wood Database, you might eliminate a lot of guessing. I make a hobby of this so if you want to try it and have trouble just ask.

Or just do what lots of people apparently do: just turn it and write cherry or maple or oak on the bottom and move on.

JKJ

[Pat Scott]

Or just do what lots of people apparently do: just turn it and write cherry or maple or oak on the bottom and move on.

LOL John, I thought about doing that too!

I turn a lot of Silver Maple and I know it's not that. Maybe it's a different kind of Maple, but for what I'm used to the bark and grain are not the same. It's not Oak either. I'm going with Pear like Thomas, Dale, and Harold said. I've only turned Pear once before and this piece reminds me of it exactly. I've roughed out the blank, cored it, and waxed it. It turned like butter and has a nice pink hue without bold grain lines. Thanks for the responses!

[John K Jordan]

Or just do what lots of people apparently do: just turn it and write cherry or maple or oak on the bottom and move on.

LOL John, I thought about doing that too!

I turn a lot of Silver Maple and I know it's not that. Maybe it's a different kind of Maple, but for what I'm used to the bark and grain are not the same. It's not Oak either. I'm going with Pear like Thomas, Dale, and Harold said. I've only turned Pear once before and this piece reminds me of it exactly. I've roughed out the blank, cored it, and waxed it. It turned like butter and has a nice pink hue without bold grain lines. Thanks for the responses!

The effort put into identifying the wood depends entirely on how important it is! If you take the effort to mail off a sample the US govmt Forest Products Lab will ID up to 5 wood samples per year for each citizen. Simpler is shaving and comparing the end grain but that takes some experience and reference materials.

If you know a forestry person they can often recognize the wood by the bark, the look, and the smell.

I'm thinking of going with "Tree Wood" on those I can't identify positively. (Posted this before, sorry, can't help myself.)

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JKJ

[Mel Fulks]

John,thanks. Did not know that was free there! I once paid about $50 for an independant ID and the guy KEPT the sample.
Called and demanded the piece,which was part of a fine antique,and he relented and sent it back. He had been reccomended by a well known museum house!

[John K Jordan]

John,thanks. Did not know that was free there! I once paid about $50 for an independant ID and the guy KEPT the sample.
Called and demanded the piece,which was part of a fine antique,and he relented and sent it back. He had been reccomended by a well known museum house!

Mel,

Info and links to the full instructions are at the bottom of this article (before the comments):
http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/wood-identification-guide/

Note the FPL also will not return the samples. But all they need is a tiny piece which you can usually cut or chisel from a hidden place on furniture.

Years ago not long after I got into this wood ID hobby someone on a forum was very interested in identifying some wood she had. She sent a small piece to me and sent another to the FPL. I prepared and looked at it with my lens and microscope and decided it was Elm. After a week or so she got a one-word response from the FPL: Elm. Yes!

BTW, I use a stereo microscope to look at these samples just because I have one, but this is hands-down my favorite hand lens - lighted, good optics, and CHEAP! I bought several to keep handy in different places and to give as gifts.

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https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CMDIOBK

Seeing cross sections like this is the goal:

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I got interested in wood ID years ago when I read R. Bruce Hoadley's book, "Identifying Wood", and the companion book, "Understanding Wood" (a MUST READ for anyone who works with wood and strives towards literacy, IMO)

https://www.amazon.com/Identifying-Wood-Accurate-Results-Simple/dp/0942391047
https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Wood-Craftsmans-Guide-Technology-ebook/dp/B004WYO862

JKJ

[Dane Riley]

Is this magnifier achromatic? (Does it show colored lines on a black white boundary?) Pincushion distortion is to be expected, but achromatic drives me nuts. Usually it takes a cemented or airspaced doublet or triplet to fix achromatic distortion.

[andy bessette]

Taking a fresh cut and smelling the wood might give you a hint.

[John K Jordan]

Is this magnifier achromatic? (Does it show colored lines on a black white boundary?) Pincushion distortion is to be expected, but achromatic drives me nuts. Usually it takes a cemented or airspaced doublet or triplet to fix achromatic distortion.

Dane,

I examined only one of the half dozen or so I have. The lens was not perfectly achromatic: when viewing a grid of fine black lines on white it did have some chromatic aberration toward the outside of the lens, a faint blue line where black met white, very narrow compared to what I've seen in other inexpensive lenses. There is some pincushioning.

Neither of these seem important for looking at wood samples since high contrast sharp-edge black/white edges are nonexistent in wood.

I cannot detect any coating. The built in lighting is excellent as is the wide field of view. It has scales along the edge of the view. The focus is a tiny bit past the plane of the scale mount which allows for focusing on details on surfaces not perfectly planar. It comes with batteries and a nice zippered hard case.

All in all, I thing this magnifier/loupe is well worth the $13.75 investment. I have tried several and I like this one the best.

JKJ

[Leo Van Der Loo]

For many if not most regular trees, one does not need a shaved slice of the trees wood, and expensive wood books and magnifiers, IF one knows the different trees.

Yes there are those that give advise but no help as what the wood might be, suggesting one just write any name on the turning is just BS.

As it is for some of those that don't know anything about IDing different trees and logs, as it does take some knowledge and experience to identify the different woods.

The wood in this thread is Pear wood IMO.

[John K Jordan]

Interesting sentiment. Mine differs.

The suggestion to make up a wood name for a turning was a joke. Next time I'll add some of these :) :) :) :) :) to cue those with a differing sense of humor. From the OP's comment, the emoji were unnecessary in that case.

As for learning how to ID wood, I find it an interesting and useful hobby. I've been interested for a long time but became more focused when I began to acquire a variety of wood myself and see turnings at the local club labeled is obvious error. One nice bowl passed around was labeled "Cherry" when the wood was obviously strongly ring porous, even without a magnifier. That specific ignorance could be eliminated for life with a few minutes of education.

I must correct this misconception, though: the resources needed to examine the end grain are not expensive: a single edged razor blade and a small 10x magnifying glass can be had for $2. I use expensive microscopes only because I already have them. Hoadley's book "Identifying Wood" and others are helpful as they teach the procedure, the porosity categories, about parenchyma and tyloses, and contain organized charts to help narrow down the selection. Photos of end grain are free on the internet. Here is one from the Wood Database for pear: http://www.wood-database.com/pear/

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Another resource with free photos is Hobbithouseinc.com: http://hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/pearwood.htm It is educational to look at his collection of photos for just that one wood. Paul, BTW, is a fascinating person and probably knows more about wood than any 10 of us.

The problem with resources like these is they provide no way to systematically narrow the search to ID an unknown wood. They are fantastic for confirming or eliminating a guess. Unless your guess is right, though, you could spend a lot of time making and checking new guesses. Keep in mind that some experts believe there are over 10,000 different species of wood in the world. Even by narrowing the search to the most common woods in the US might still have well over 100. Even professional wood dealers often get it wrong so you cannot rely completely on the name given by the expert. And once I had a neighbor give me some elm wood and the some of what he thought were the leaves - it wasn't until years later I discovered it was actually hackberry.

What I find illuminating about the Hobbithouseinc wood pictures is the vast variation between different samples of the same wood! When I slice into trees with my sawmill I am surprised sometimes at the extreme variation in the same TREE. The person who believes he can accurately ID an unknown species of wood by looking at a photo of piece might even learn from this. Otherwise you might as well simply make a guess and stick with it, no joke. Having the bark is a great help but even then the bark of many species looks very similar and the bark can look different elsewhere on the same tree. Knowing the area where the tree grew can be a big help but with cultivars and imported species even that is no guarantee. Some other useful factors besides the the most useful, the end grain porosity classification and arrangement, are smell, density, color, fluorescence, ray thickness/length, arrangement of parenchyma, presence of tyloses. In particular, tyloses are a major indicator and are so easy to see once you know what to look for.

The best way to ID a piece of wood, of course, is to grow and cut the tree yourself and have the leaves. However, many people will still be confused on some species since lots of leaves look very similar. And most people who get an unknown piece of wood from some source can not be expected to know what it is by the look, especially if that species does not grow in their area or they had no experience with it. Those who never use anything but the same handful of local woods should have no problem.

JKJ


For many if not most regular trees, one does not need a shaved slice of the trees wood, and expensive wood books and magnifiers, IF one knows the different trees.
Yes there are those that give advise but no help as what the wood might be, suggesting one just write any name on the turning is just BS.
As it is for some of those that don't know anything about IDing different trees and logs, as it does take some knowledge and experience to identify the different woods.
The wood in this thread is Pear wood IMO.

[andy bessette]

JJ--I have often been impressed with photos of your well thought out and organized work as well as your posts. This one is no different.

My own (2nd) career as a boat builder, though spanning more than 40 years, has given me a limited knowledge of wood species as I mostly work with teak and mahogany, with many variations of the latter. One curious addition to your list of different ways to identify wood is one I have learned from personal experience. I can tell the difference between a teak splinter and one from some other wood, once it has pierced my flesh. Really! :) Also fine teak sawdust has a peculiar way of slightly burning your sinuses when working without a dust mask.

[John K Jordan]

JJ--I have often been impressed with photos of your well thought out and organized work as well as your posts. This one is no different.

My own (2nd) career as a boat builder, though spanning more than 40 years, has given me a limited knowledge of wood species as I mostly work with teak and mahogany, with many variations of the latter. One curious addition to your list of different ways to identify wood is one I have learned from personal experience. I can tell the difference between a teak splinter and one from some other wood, once it has pierced my flesh. Really! :) Also fine teak sawdust has a peculiar way of slightly burning your sinuses when working without a dust mask.

Thank you for the kind words! I enjoy wood and creating things and knowledge and life immensely.

For some reason in my stash of 125 species of wood I've never had a piece of teak. Now I want to seek out and splinter some and stick one in my arm. A good experiment would be to compare other types of splinters and play home allergy doctor. :eek:

Smell is one of my favorite quick ways to ID but requires personal experience. Just cut or sand Cocobolo once and you will never forget it. Unfortunately, it is difficult to describe a unique smell to another person. I acquired a big slab of some exotic wood about 15 years ago that has an incredibly pleasant sweet smell. I've asked others over the years but so far no one has recognized it.

Hey, maybe someone will publish wood ID guide with a Scratch and Sniff patch on each page! I'd buy one. :)

JKJ

[andy bessette]

....Hey, maybe someone will publish wood ID guide with a Scratch and Sniff patch on each page! I'd buy one. :) JKJ

I swear I was thinking this very same thing just before I read your last line! :)

If you PM me your address I'll be happy to send a teak bobbitt for your wood collection.