Wood ID

[George Heatherly]

I'm starting to turn again after an accident and a year in a nursing home. I have two pieces made from woods that I would like to identify. The bowl is from a huge tree on a residential street in northeast Ohio. It was posted on Craigslist as firewood. This is a core from the single large piece that I was able to get into my truck. When I cored and rough turned the pieces there was some red staining in the wood that I thought might be box elder. It's now almost 2 years later and the red is gone.

The ice cream scoop came from a piece in my box of scraps. I have no idea when or where I got it.

I find that people often ask "What kind of wood is that?" when I give wooden items away. Any help would be appreciated.Ice Cream Scoop.jpgBowl2.jpg

[Mark Rainey]

Poplar for the bowl

[John K Jordan]

I'm starting to turn again after an accident and a year in a nursing home. I have two pieces made from woods that I would like to identify. The bowl is from a huge tree on a residential street in northeast Ohio. It was posted on Craigslist as firewood. This is a core from the single large piece that I was able to get into my truck. When I cored and rough turned the pieces there was some red staining in the wood that I thought might be box elder. It's now almost 2 years later and the red is gone.

The ice cream scoop came from a piece in my box of scraps. I have no idea when or where I got it.

I find that people often ask "What kind of wood is that?" when I give wooden items away. Any help would be appreciated.Ice Cream Scoop.jpgBowl2.jpg

The red in box elder will gradually disappear, often changing to light brown.

If you have the bark or better, the leaves identification is easier. Remember, due to natural variation many species look similar in a photo. If you get multiple guesses from a picture remember that all of them are wrong except, if you are lucky, one.

To ID wood, the first thing to do is look at the end grain and see if the wood is ring porous, diffuse porous, or semi-diffuse porous. Knowing that will eliminate a lot of candidate species. To examine the end grain, follow the instructions in section 7 on this page: https://www.wood-database.com/wood-a...ication-guide/ Note that the gov will also ID for free, check the bottom of that page.

If wood ID is something you would like to learn more about, consider getting the book Identifying Wood by R. Bruce Hoadley. Mine is so well used most of the pages are falling out.

JKJ