what wood is this - found in my Ash pile

[Bob Cooper]

found this board in my Ash pile and i have no idea what it is. I'm showing the unknown wood and some Ash for contrast.
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[Mark Gibney]

Alder? What's your own best guess?

Edit - my laptop originally showed just photo #2. I now agree that it's likely sycamore.

[Jared Sankovich]

Looks like sycamore on the quarter saw edge

Quartered sycamore

[Prashun Patel]

That looks exactly like sycamore to me. How hard is it? Sycamore is about as hard as poplar - at least to my fingers and blades.

[Jim Morgan]

That looks exactly like sycamore to me. How hard is it? Sycamore is about as hard as poplar - at least to my fingers and blades.

+1

Attractive figure, good stability when quartersawn; poor stability when flatsawn.

[Mel Fulks]

Sasafrass If it smells like root beer when you sand it .

[Yonak Hawkins]

I think I see ash and poplar.

[Prashun Patel]

I don't normally come out so confident on this stuff, but I would put money on that being sycamore.

[Bob Cooper]

Thanks. It’s an interesting looking wood and I’ve never worked with sycamore even though I have some on my property. Definitely not any poplar or alder I’ve ever used.

[Mark Bolton]

It looks like ash to me lol

** Edit... saw the ash thinking that was your suspect board. Looks like sycamore to me

[Jim Becker]

The edge says sycamore to me, too...

[Justin Ludwig]

That looks exactly like sycamore to me. How hard is it? Sycamore is about as hard as poplar - at least to my fingers and blades.
Sycamore is way harder than poplar. I haven’t looked at their respective Janka scales, I’m just going by experience. Sycamore is a beautiful wood. I was lucky enough to build some cabinets for a client that had a standing dead sycamore in the yard of their cabin.

[John Lanciani]

Sycamore is way harder than poplar. I haven’t looked at their respective Janka scales, I’m just going by experience. Sycamore is a beautiful wood. I was lucky enough to build some cabinets for a client that had a standing dead sycamore in the yard of their cabin.

Correct. Poplar is 540, Sycamore is 770 Janka.

[Danny Hamsley]

Yes, in the edge pic, top is ash, bottom is sycamore. In the last pic, the right three boards are ash, the left three boards are yellow poplar.

[Prashun Patel]

Janka beats my fingers any day. But I still maintain they both work (meaning with chisels and planes) about the same. Would you call 500 - 770 a big difference? They both dent pretty easily. I use both pretty regularly - as I'm sure you do - and I don't notice any practical, functional differences in dent resistance or weight.

Sycamore is usually pinker than poplar which tends be yellow. I understand that's a generalization.

[Justin Ludwig]

I've only worked with sycamore once. The boards I worked with were heavy like hickory. They machined easily but I had a lot of tension to contend with because they weren't dried properly. As far as hardness, I'd liken poplar to alder and sycamore (the 200BF I worked with) to oak.

I would have lost a million dollars if you asked me to bet the janka scale of sycamore to be less than 1000.

My Dad uses sycamore for spawning brush piles in the lake because it sinks when green and requires minimum weights to keep it down on the bottom.

[Ben Zara]

Edge looks like sycamore.

[Matthew Springer]

I agree it looks like sycamore, but might also be elm. Elm can actually get that same brown mottled ray fleck on the edge and it can look like poplar in the other areas it's not mottled. I have a big elm slab and it's not as heavily motteld as sycamore and it's kinda halfway between the too (poplar and sycamore). I also have a bunch of sycamore boards to for contrast.

Also elm grows in a lot of the same regions that ash grows in (like say Colorado).

[Jim Becker]

Easy way to tell if it's elm...smell it. If reminds you of a well used fire hydrant in a doggie park...it's likely elm. :)

[John K Jordan]

Easy way to tell if it's elm...smell it. If reminds you of a well used fire hydrant in a doggie park...it's likely elm. :)

And elm is instantly recognized by the latewood pores, with a hand magnifier or, in the case of elm, usually with the naked eye:

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Actually, hackberry end grain also has the wavy bands of latewood pores but without the "distinctive" smell. :)

JKJ