Help on identifying this wood!

[Kyle Brooks]

Can someone give me some help on identifying this wood. My brother found it cleaning out a storage unit and would like to make it into a small table. We live in Northeast Kansas if that helps. Was slabbed with a chain saw and I have planed both sides flat.

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Thanks for the help,
Kyle

[Art Mann]

Looks like walnut with heavy spalting to me.

[Lee Schierer]

It looks like it could be walnut, but either your flash overexposed the photo or your white balance is off. Try taking a photo outside without the flash.

Upon further thought is is most likely not walnut as the sap wood is much too thin of a layer and it wouldn't be in the center portion of the crotch.

[Kyle Brooks]

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Here is is a picture outside with sun light.

[BrianD King]

It looked more like walnut in the first photos, but now it doesn't look like walnut at all. Do you have an end grain pic? Also wipe some mineral spirits on it and take a photo. That might help.

Wondering if it's birch...Grain is tight and doesn't appear porous.

[Kyle Brooks]

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Sprayed some water on it to help with the color. Anyone think it is elm? I think it is to light to be walnut. Most walnut in our area is black walnut.

[Kory Cassel]

Looks like walnut, white sapwood at the edges.

[Kyle Brooks]

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I think it is older or maybe a piece of drift wood. Maybe that is why it is so light in color.

[BrianD King]

Maybe sand it and smell. Walnut is unique in its smell.

[John K Jordan]

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Sprayed some water on it to help with the color. Anyone think it is elm? I think it is to light to be walnut. Most walnut in our area is black walnut.

Kyle,

The first thing to do is take a closer look at the end grain and see if it is ring porous, diffuse porous, or semi-diffuse porous. If you shave a tiny spot on the end grain with single-edged razor blade or a sharp knife the wavy patterns in the latewood would be very distinctive for elm, completely unlike anything else except close to hackberry.

A 10x magnifier will help but you can generally see these patterns in elm with no magnification:
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Section 7 on this page describes how to prepare and examine the end grain.
https://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/wood-identification-guide/

The book "Identifying Wood" by R. Bruce Hoadley might make figuring out what you have easy. I've used my copy so much the pages are falling out.

BTW, black walnut can vary from very light to very dark. I have some english walnut that is quite light light. Butternut can be very light. The white areas can be due to fungus.

This page has black walnut: http://hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/walnut,%20black.htm
This page has photos of english (european) walnut: http://hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/walnut,%20european.htm
This has butternut: http://hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/butternut.htm
All of these have end grain photos too.

JKJ

[Kyle Brooks]

John,

Thanks for the info. I may have to get that book for future reference. Here are some pics of some shavings of end grain.

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Again, thanks for both the help and information.

Kyle

[John K Jordan]

Looks elm-y from the latewood pores. It's ring porous, definitely not walnut.
ALso, elm usually doesn't smell pleasant when cut.

Google something like wood with wavy bands of latewood pores for lots of references that include info about elm

Note that you can send a sample to the gov lab for free ID. The info is at the bottom of the wood ID page on the Wood Database.

JKJ

[Scott T Smith]

It does not appear to be walnut to me.

Typically walnut has a wider sapwood band at the perimeter, and it is highly unusual for walnut heartwood to spalt - especially when the sapwood is still in such great shape.

[Jeremy Hite]

I literally a couple days ago made a thread on here asking the exact same question for what appears to be identical species of wood and I can only get close to the type of wood that it is by calling it persimmon but I'm not able to have the free time as of yet to really research that find out exactly but I have a whole bunch of it and it makes them absolutely beautiful pieces on the lathe or it also does really beautiful things like rings and bangles and so forth399595

[John K Jordan]

I literally a couple days ago made a thread on here asking the exact same question for what appears to be identical species of wood and I can only get close to the type of wood that it is by calling it persimmon but I'm not able to have the free time as of yet to really research that find out exactly but I have a whole bunch of it and it makes them absolutely beautiful pieces on the lathe or it also does really beautiful things like rings and bangles and so forth

I've cut a lot of persimmon on my sawmill and turned a lot of it. Persimmon can vary tremendously from very light to very dark. I suppose it's possible, but I've never seen any similar to the photo. Persimmon is also very heavy, 52lbs/cu ft compared to walnut's 38lbs/cu ft. (persimmon is a type of ebony, sometimes called White Ebony or American Ebony.) Hobbithouseinc has some pictures of persimmon wood: http://hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/persimmon.htm

I turned these from persimmon years ago:

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JKJ

[Richard Coers]

Looks like elm to me.

[Andrew Seemann]

This is a piece of elm from the old man's place. He had it milled up about a dozen years ago (it probably had dutch elm), and then stored it in a too damp basement. Not sure of the species, likely American elm. Not that it matters, it is destined to become firewood in the next few days. Stinky, unstable, and awful to work, and having it full of mildew doesn't help either.

If you can stand using it, elm finishes up kind of pretty and almost has a tropical hardwood look about it.

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