Wood I.D. Help

[Ricc Havens]

A friend at church brought me couple pieces of wood yesterday. He washn't sure what kind it was. Can anyone identify it from the pics below?

Thanks
Ricc
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[Brian Brown]

This is probably wrong, but it bears some resemblance to a carpathian (english or european) walnut I cut down. If it is, the light sap wood will darken some, and get some dark blotches and what looks like mineral stains.

[Ricc Havens]

This is probably wrong, but it bears some resemblance to a carpathian (english or european) walnut I cut down. If it is, the light sap wood will darken some, and get some dark blotches and what looks like mineral stains.

Brian, thanks for the response. I have some english walnut bowl and spindle blanks on my storage racks. this looks a lot lighter than that stuff. the english walnut I have is more consistently brown across the whole piece. This has pretty light wood with a darker center. I was thinking hickory but I really don't know.

Thanks
Ricc

[daryl moses]

Not a lot to go on. Leaves and bark would be a big help but it does look a lot like Hickory.

[John K Jordan]

Section 7 of this: http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/wood-identification-guide/

JKJ

[Ricc Havens]

Not a lot to go on. Leaves and bark would be a big help but it does look a lot like Hickory.

Daryl, Here is a photo of the bark you suggested adding.

Ricc

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[Ricc Havens]

Section 7 of this: http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/wood-identification-guide/

JKJ

thanks John. I don't have a magnifier like he recommends and I will have to see about ordering one and seeing if our library book.

If anyone else has an opinion please feel fre to add it.

Thanks!
Ricc
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[daryl moses]

Daryl, Here is a photo of the bark you suggested adding.

Ricc

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Sure looks like Hickory to me.

[Ted Okolichany]

Me too! Hickory.

[John K Jordan]

thanks John. I don't have a magnifier like he recommends and I will have to see about ordering one and seeing if our library book.

If anyone else has an opinion please feel fre to add it.

Thanks!
Ricc
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I have several magnifiers plus a low power stereo microscope which makes it easy.

Unfortunately, it looks like my favorite hand magnifier is no longer being offered by the same seller on Amazon. I probably bought 8-10 of these at about $13 each, now some other company wants over $30 for it.

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Any small 10x magnifier will work. Search for loupe 10x. Some are really cheap and any will work. The only other thing needed are some single-edged razor blades and some reference photos. Wood Database has these online, Hobbithouseinc has some as well. My favorite reference is R. Bruce Hoadley's book "Identifying Wood".

Without looking at the end grain a guess is just a guess. For some idea of the variation, look at the photos of candidate guesses on Hobbithouseinc.

JKJ

[robert baccus]

You can tell by the smell if it,s hickory--looks like it!

[John K Jordan]

You can tell by the smell if it,s hickory--looks like it!

Certainly, assuming experience with the smell of hickory

What would be useful is a Scratch&Sniff book for wood smells! So many woods have distinctive smells but they are useless unless you have experience with them.

For example, I have a 8/4 plank of some kind of exotic wood with nondescript color and figure. It has a very distinctive smell when cut that I can only describe as "sweet". I can't pin down an ID with the end grain examination. That and some other pieces in my shop are currently labeled "???". :)

I can instantly recognize a number of species by smell alone and I'm sure someone is familiar with that one if I can just find the right person! I'm thinking of sending a piece to wood collector Eric at the Wood Database and one to the government wood ID lab.

JKJ

[Ricc Havens]

thanks for all the input and help!!

Ricc

[robert baccus]

Hickory smells like horse pee and sweat.

[Ricc Havens]

Hickory smells like horse pee and sweat.

yes it definitely had that odor! :) :)

[John K Jordan]

yes it definitely had that odor! :) :)

Yes, maybe no need to put that one on a scratch_and_sniff!

[Karl Loeblein]

Does it turn smooth? Sweetgum can smell as described, but it turns and finishes much smoother than hickory.

Sweetgum Pic from: https://www.extension.purdue.edu/extmedia/FNR/FNR-300-W.pdf

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[Leo Van Der Loo]

I have turned quite a few pieces of Hickory from logs, and have never seen a Hickory log with that much sapwood, or better light colored wood and little dark wood, also the hickory wood has more year ring early and late wood showing than what the OP’s log is showing.

To me that wood is Sweetgum, a good picture is shown right above in Karl’s post, where you also can see the large amount of light wood, I do have pictures of pieces that I turned, and you can see and compare the sapwood of the Hickory and the grain that is showing on them.



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[robert baccus]

Hickory is ring porous, SG is not.

[Ricc Havens]

Does it turn smooth? Sweetgum can smell as described, but it turns and finishes much smoother than hickory.

Sweetgum Pic from: https://www.extension.purdue.edu/extmedia/FNR/FNR-300-W.pdf

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Have not had a chance to turn any yet so I don't know if it turns smooth. But, The log sections did look like this so maybe it is sweet gum.

Thanks
Ricc

[John K Jordan]

Have not had a chance to turn any yet so I don't know if it turns smooth. But, The log sections did look like this so maybe it is sweet gum.


Guesses, guesses! :) Once again, spend a minute with a single-edged razor blade and clean off a tiny piece of end grain.

You may not be able to say what it IS for sure, but you can certainly see what it IS NOT and cannot possibly be, give the choice between sweetgum and hickory. You can do this without a magnifier, just your eye.

Sweetgum and Hickory, from the Wood Database, 10x magnification of end grain.
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Disregard the color. Look at the rings and pores. It's not possible to confuse one with the other when you look closely.

JKJ

[robert baccus]

Leo, that bowl you show is surely hickory--SG has 0 growth rings --almost impossible to age in a lab--your wood appears to be ring porous and the color is surely hickory. SW heart is a product of age and not size being present in trees of 100 years and up--I harvest one every other year in my yard and they have to be dying in the tops to have pretty heartwood.

[robert baccus]

It does turn smooth, preferably when it is greenish--it has no open, growth rings that are visible and is very fine grained consequently. I sell urns from SG with dark heartwood and the finish like glas.

[robert baccus]

SG turns like butter when greenish--has no growth rings unlike hickory, and does have a tendency to warp--not so much with dark heart and spindle turned--the sap warps like crazy however. Stunning beautiful if you can very old trees with dark heart often called red gum or even satin walnut.

[Leo Van Der Loo]

Leo, that bowl you show is surely hickory--SG has 0 growth rings --almost impossible to age in a lab--your wood appears to be ring porous and the color is surely hickory. SW heart is a product of age and not size being present in trees of 100 years and up--I harvest one every other year in my yard and they have to be dying in the tops to have pretty heartwood.

Bob, I did show the Hickory bowls to show that what the OP was showing, wasn’t Hickory, as was suggested by some, and yes Hickory is ring porous and it is easily to see that on smooth polished wood, the reason for the pictures.

Also Hickory does not have a lot of sapwood, and certainly not as much as the light colored wood that Sweetgum shows, besides the year rings that are easily seen in the Hickory are near invisible in the Sweetgum and like the wood in the OP’s picture.

So yes I do believe it is Sweetgum what the OP is showing :), have a good day 387469

[robert baccus]

Sorry, dam computer!

[Paul Crofton]

I sorry I can't identify it but I have done hickory and it does not look like it to me. The bark is to smooth and not showing the shaggy roughness and the cross cut even though machine cut is not stringy as I remember what I dealt with.

[robert baccus]

The word hickory is not a unique noun--there are many hickory's in tht US. Many are crosshatched bark and very rough and some are very smooth--hard to ID on just this. My Wood tech textbook lists 8 if you include the "pecan hickory"s as well.

[Karl Loeblein]

SG turns like butter when greenish--has no growth rings unlike hickory, and does have a tendency to warp--not so much with dark heart and spindle turned--the sap warps like crazy however. Stunning beautiful if you can very old trees with dark heart often called red gum or even satin walnut.

Robert, What did you mean by saying SG "has no growth rings"? Growth rings can be seen in many of the end grain pics here:
http://www.hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/gum.htm

Anyway, you're right about Red Gum being stunningly beautiful. It becoming one of my favorite woods to turn.

Here's a sweet gum platter that I finished recently:
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[Leo Van Der Loo]

Robert, What did you mean by saying SG "has no growth rings"? Growth rings can be seen in many of the end grain pics here:
http://www.hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/gum.htm

Anyway, you're right about Red Gum being stunningly beautiful. It becoming one of my favorite woods to turn.

Here's a sweet gum platter that I finished recently:
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SG turns like butter when greenish--has no growth rings unlike hickory, and does have a tendency to warp--not so much with dark heart and spindle turned--the sap warps like crazy however. Stunning beautiful if you can very old trees with dark heart often called red gum or even satin walnut.

Robert is comparing the growth rings as seen in Hickory as compared to Sweetgum/Redgum I think, and he is correct I would say, in that yes the year rings are often very indistinct as seen in these pictures, and then compared to the Hickory year rings in the other pictures, .. note the narrow sapwood in Hickory.

oh and yes a very nice platter indeed.

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