Wood identification needed!!! Please

[thomas prusak]

I never like making anything out of wood in which I’m not very certain about what species it is. I thought this platter was Mirindiba but now am not convinced. This piece is probably 20 plus years old. Any help will be much appreciated.

[Sam Force]

I'm calling black walnut

[Bob Coates]

Walnut as Sam said

[Tom Wilson66]

Definitely cherry. It has just darkened a bit.
Tom

[Pat Scott]

I agree with Tom, it looks like Cherry.

[Dave Mount]

All woods can vary so threads like this are a lot of guesswork. I agree the piece shows some characteristics reminiscent of cherry and walnut, but I don't think it's either one.

I'd vote no on cherry for several reasons but mostly because of the curl. That curl is not like the curl what on sees in cherry, which occurs in larger "waves" and not generally in straight continuous waves where a single "wave" goes straight across most of the board. Curly cherry usually has figure more like flame birch than curly maple (not saying this is either of those, just comparing the character of the curl). Here's a collage of curly cherry boards:

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/2026/2511/articles/Cherry_995x.PNG?v=1554486583

Walnut can get curl like this, but it's not common, especially in such straight-grained wood. The gum pockets, or whatever the dark mottling is on the right side of the bottom view, does not look much like walnut. More significantly, the earlywood grain lines don't seem pronounced enough for walnut (see pic). Walnut has moderately open pore structure in the earlywood that makes the grain lines stand out, then the pores kind of feather out as it moves into the latewood. I'm voting against walnut as well. Color is in the right ballpark, but the grain characteristics are not.

https://previews.123rf.com/images/goodween123/goodween1231908/goodween123190800197/128359074-real-black-walnut-wood-texture-with-natural-grain.jpg

Unfortunately, while I'm pretty confident it's not walnut or cherry, I don't have a good alternative guess. I know little about exotics (parochially meaning not from the U.S.). Are you pretty sure it is a wood from outside the U.S.?

Google image searches turn up very little for "Mirindiba wood" so not much help there.

Best,

Dave

[Prashun Patel]

That is some amazing curl. I agree that I have not seen cherry curl like that. It usually looks like this


https://sawmillcreek.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=297430&d=1411837636

That being said, the color, grain, and sap/heartwood contrast look remarkably like cherry.

[thomas prusak]

I appreciate the replies very much so. It’s definitely an exotic species as it came from a collection of exotic woods from places outside of the USA. I wish John was still with us to solve the mystery. Thanks guys

[kevin nee]

Perhaps Butternut?

[Stark Suggs]

It looks a lot like cherry.....

SWS