What kind of wood is this?

[Edward Garrett]

I am trying to identify this wood...The boards are a bit heavier/denser than pine, and have the texture/feel of cedar.

The two pieces pictured were milled from some boards I salvaged from my barn renovation I did three years ago....the barn is in northeast PA and was originally build around 1820's/30's. I have approx. 20 boards 10' long, ~1" thick, and between 5"-14" wide. The boards pictured were floor boards in the upper bay where they stored hay....

Could this be American Chestnut?

Thanks in advance for any help/info!

[Rod Sheridan]

Chestnut or butternut???????

Regards, Rod.

[Greg Cole]

+1 more for a Chesnut vote.
Consider yourself fortunate....

Greg

[Neal Clayton]

yeah, good old stuff there. won't see boards with that many rings per inch at home depot, that's for sure ;).

[Peter Quinn]

Sorry to burst the chestnut bubble but that wood looks an awful lot like white oak to me and not much like either butternut or chestnut. Some white oak is lighter in weight than others, some surprisingly light for WO, other boards are very heavy.

Do you have pics of the edge grain? You should see medullary ray flec in a fresh cut of end grain on plain sawn wo. Looks like you can see longitudinal stripes in the flat sawn face, hard to tell in pics for sure.

[John Keeton]

I think butternut is out, lean toward white oak. Put a little blo on it and see if you get a red tone. Chestnut usually has a reddish undertone to it. It is also a little more splintery (word?) and softer than white oak.

[scott spencer]

Chestnut was my first thought....the brown streaks caught my attention. Do the edges of the boards have flecks like quartersawn white oak?

[Jim Becker]

Given the location, nature of it's previous use, appearance and age, I think that Chestnut is a very likely identification.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

could be elm.

[Jack Camillo]

Can't compare to pine or cedar. I would have guessed oak never having seen chestnut boards (though as I mentioned in a previous post, I burned an entire chestnut tree in the woodstove before I was into woodworking). I think we need a community wood identification pictoral encyclopedia.

[Edward Garrett]

The wood is "splintery" like cedar....I am not sure what is meant by "flecks" in the end grain?

I will post a few more pics this Friday/Saturday, to include better end grain photos....I may even bring a piece to my local sawyer.

Thanks to everyone for the posts/help....

[John Keeton]

Startin' to sound like Chestnut!

[Lee Schierer]

If the boards were barn siding most likely they were Hemlock. Hemlock is a weather resistant wood and was commonly used for barn siding. If the wood was from interior beams, then chesnut would be a likely cadidate. It looks a lot like hickory as well from the photos, but hickory is pretty heavy.

[Brian D Anderson]

Can't compare to pine or cedar. I would have guessed oak never having seen chestnut boards (though as I mentioned in a previous post, I burned an entire chestnut tree in the woodstove before I was into woodworking). I think we need a community wood identification pictoral encyclopedia.

Kinda like this? http://www.hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/indextotal.htm

Here's the Chesnut page:

http://www.hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/chestnut.htm

-Brian

[Bill Geyer]

Look carefully at the end grain photo - It's definitely not white oak and the figure is not consistent with Butternut - I'd say it's chestnut without a doubt.

[Edward Garrett]

After looking at the second link in Brian's post above, I am almost certain it is chestnut....the pictures in this link very closely resemble what I have seen in most of the pieces I have. THANKS BRIAN!!

To answer one of the questions above, most of the boards were floor boards, there are a few others (wider boards) which were dividers between bays.

I will still post additional photos of these pieces by Saturday....as well as photos of additional pieces if I get some time in the shop to mill some more.

Thanks everyone - this is a neat process of discovery! I have already started drawing out some plans for a table and a cabinet I hope to build with some of this wood...

[Peter Quinn]

if you can, post pics of the edge, not end, of a plain sawn board. you can ID WO from the end grain but you need some pretty high res pics to do so, the edge grain is easier. May well be chestnut. After a lifetime on the floor of a barn, having gone through numerous wet dry cycles many woods could have that splinterry texture. I have worked with a fair amount of recycled barn timbers made into flooring, though not chestnut. Some white oak kept its weight, some was light like pine, tough to ID based on weight alone.

Do you know that characteristic WO smell? Is that present when you mill it? Sort of like toasted pop corn about to burn but not quite. Both trees (oak and chestnut) had a pretty wide range at the time your barn was built, and either could be found in regular use in such structures. WO makes a better barn floor then chestnut, mostly here in New England you see chestnut for timbers, WO for floors.

I hope its chestnut, can't wait to find out! Either way its handsome wood.

[Frank Drew]

If the boards were barn siding most likely they were Hemlock. Hemlock is a weather resistant wood and was commonly used for barn siding.

But these boards don't look like hemlock to you, do they?

[Jack Camillo]

Awesome, thanks, Brian!

[Kelly C. Hanna]

Sorry to burst the chestnut bubble but that wood looks an awful lot like white oak to me and not much like either butternut or chestnut. Some white oak is lighter in weight than others, some surprisingly light for WO, other boards are very heavy.

Do you have pics of the edge grain? You should see medullary ray flec in a fresh cut of end grain on plain sawn wo. Looks like you can see longitudinal stripes in the flat sawn face, hard to tell in pics for sure.

Exactly my thought...

[Lee Schierer]

But these boards don't look like hemlock to you, do they? I have some hemlock that is close to the photos grain wise, but not matching in color. The splintery texture and light weight description would match hemlock more than the other two woods. If the boards were from a barn floor most likely they were not hemlock, so chestnut or white oak would be more likely. The staining could be from anything as barn floors saw all sorts of stuff from cow droppings to oil leaks from tractors and equipment.

[Edward Garrett]

I did get the chance to mill one of the boards this morning...again, all the boards are relatively light in weight and feel like cedar (same "splintery" texture), and other than the smeall of old barn boards I did not get a whiff of burning popcorn....

I spoke with my neighbor who says one of his barns built around the same time is all chestnut - beams and flooring - except for the outside walls (these are all pine). He actually said that my carriage house (an old, smaller barn) is also all chestnut....

My neighbor thinks the wood in the picutres is chestnut....I am still not sure.

[Peter Quinn]

From the current pics chestnut is my guess too. Not seeing the ray flec normally present in flat sawn white oak edge grain, and the dark bands on the end grain are unlike white oak also. Also a consistently light weight favors against oak.

Very good score, assuming you like the look of chestnut, which I do.

It was explained to me by an old timer that chestnut made good framing timbers for barns due to its woven grain structure. The fibers sort of wrap around each other giving the timbers good strength for its weight. While chestnut is not the strongest wood it was able to withstand considerable bug infestation without suffering a critical failure because bugs would typically bore straight lines which would not sever the long sort of woven grain of the boards. Good stuff. Congrats on that reclamation.