Wood ID

[Jim Tobias]

OK, I'm asking again for any help on ID of this wood. I scraped wax off and sanded 1 side and 1 end to get these shots. Again, thw word's "Sandalwood's Sister" was handwritten on it. I have a 6 pieces of thos. It is VERY heavy.
Any help is appreciated.
Jim387837387838387839387840

[John K Jordan]

IDing a board or a chunk of domestic wood from photographs is often an exercise in tallying the guesses. With unusual or rare woods and many exotics it's worse since many, many species can look similar due to natural variations, sometimes even within the same tree. Look up candidate species here for an idea of the variation possible: http://hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/

If an accurate ID is important, read this page: http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/wood-identification-guide/
Section 7 describes the standard method of examining the end grain for pore structure. Armed with that, you can compare what you see with online or published reference photos from the Wood Database, hobbithouseinc.com, the book Identifying Wood by R. Bruce Hoadley, and others. This will often narrow down the possibilities. Hoadley's book is a great place to start with the hobby of wood id.

The article also has some other hints.

One thing I do is cut a small rectangular piece, dry it, and measure the size and weight to get the density and compare that to densities of candidate species. Check the smell. Hit it with UV light and look for fluorescence. Apply alcohol and water and check for fluorescence.

Another thing you can try is carrying it to someone with a lot of wood experience and see if they can recognize it. Another thing is to take a guess, call it that, and move on.

At the end of Section 7 are instructions on how to send a sample to the US government laboratory for ID. The times I tried that with domestic species they were prompt and accurate. I don't know how they are with exotics.

JKJ

[Jim Tobias]

Thanks John. I went to the Hobbithouse site but was unable to locate any reference to Sandalwood. I had googled Sandalwood and got several Genus but could not find them on the Hobbithouse page either.
Identifying the wood is not imperative but I found it(Sandalwood's Sister) interesting and wanted to know the origin of the name. There are many pieces of wood in this last batch I purchased that I have never seen and it's interesting to know a little more about the piece that you pull from the stacks.
Again thanks for your input,
Jim

[John C Bush]

Chontaquiro??? Peruvian Walnut?? I aquired some turning blanks--10" dia. log sections--that look a lot like your stock. Hard and brittle--heavy as well-- when turning but has a nice dark color when finished with oil. Looks close.

[John K Jordan]

Did you get a list of the "false" sandalwoods? This one is from WikiPedia but I didn't look too hard, there may be others:

Adenanthera pavonina - sandalwood tree, red or false red sandalwood
Baphia nitida - camwood, also known as African sandalwood
Eremophila mitchellii - sandalwood; false sandalwood (also sandalbox)
Myoporum platycarpum - sandalwood; false sandalwood
Myoporum sandwicense - bastard sandalwood, false sandalwood
Osyris lanceolata - African sandalwood
Osyris tenuifolia - east African sandalwood

A wood site might have some of these by the scientific name even where it doesn't have the word "sandalwood". Maybe you can find some 10x end grain shots to compare with a sample of your wood.

Several knowledgeable sources indicate the likelihood of 60,000 species of wood in the world. Most are not even catalogued so casual IDing a specific uncommon wood may be next to impossible, except for the guy living next to it in the jungle. If you have something related to sandalwood, the smell might be the key to someone familiar with that species. I have a heavy plank of some wonderfully aromatic wood I'd also like to know what it is, but I've never smelled anything like it. This is where I'd like the scratch&sniff wood smell guide I conjectured recently! I'll probably eventually send pieces to a couple of wood collectors I know and maybe one to the government lab. I got this one from a guy who got it from a guy who passed away so the provenance is long lost. (The guy had a huge variety of species, many exotics - I got a lifetime supply of cocobolo for close to nothing)

JKJ



Thanks John. I went to the Hobbithouse site but was unable to locate any reference to Sandalwood. I had googled Sandalwood and got several Genus but could not find them on the Hobbithouse page either.
Identifying the wood is not imperative but I found it(Sandalwood's Sister) interesting and wanted to know the origin of the name. There are many pieces of wood in this last batch I purchased that I have never seen and it's interesting to know a little more about the piece that you pull from the stacks.
Again thanks for your input,
Jim