Wood ID?

[Jim Tobias]

Need some educated guesses about this piece of wood. I cut several blanks and started to turn some pieces and can't for the life of me figure out what wood this is. It is one of about 60 - 100 blanks and chunks of wood that I got a few years back from a gentleman(former Air Force) who traveled around the world and bought all sorts of wood and shipped them back to his home and made clocks and gunstocks. I am reasonably knowledgeable about wood but there are a lot of pieces that are not labeled and when it's a burl or highly figured piece, it makes it difficult to recognize.
Any help would be appreciated. I was thinking maybe Bubinga(but it is not very reddish in color), or Koa, or some type of Oak from somewhere around the world. It has some curl and some other blotchy grain also.
Thanks for any help.
Jim
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[John K Jordan]

Need some educated guesses about this piece of wood. I cut several blanks and started to turn some pieces and can't for the life of me figure out what wood this is. It is one of about 60 - 100 blanks and chunks of wood that I got a few years back from a gentleman(former Air Force) who traveled around the world and bought all sorts of wood and shipped them back to his home and made clocks and gunstocks. I am reasonably knowledgeable about wood but there are a lot of pieces that are not labeled and when it's a burl or highly figured piece, it makes it difficult to recognize.
Any help would be appreciated. I was thinking maybe Bubinga(but it is not very reddish in color), or Koa, or some type of Oak from somewhere around the world. It has some curl and some other blotchy grain also.
Thanks for any help.
Jim
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Read this: https://www.wood-database.com/wood-a...ication-guide/
Follow section 7 to see how to examine the end grain (assuming you still have a scrap).
The end grain on your photo shows a distinctive pattern which might be a great help. If you have several candidates you can look them up with the search in the online Wood Database. Sometimes the wood filter can narrow the choices: https://www.wood-database.com/wood-filter/

Some species are fluorescent under UV light and some are reactive to certain chemicals.
At the end of the write-up are instructions for getting professional help.

Remember there are many thousands of wood species around the globe. Positively identifying any one piece of wood by a photo is often somewhere between tricky and impossible.
Often when someone asked for ID from a photo there will be at least several guesses. One thing to keep in mind is ALL of them will be wrong except for one (if you are lucky)!

JKJ

[Jim Tobias]

Thanks John, I got out the loupe and looked at the cut off from the blank and it seems to me to be Koa. Makes sense also colorwise and figure.
Thanks.
Jim

[mike ash]

It is certainly hard to tell from the photos. But it doesn't look like any of the 300 bf of KOA that I have. I'll be watching to see what you finally determine it to be.

[Don Orr]

Elm-nearly positive. Did it smell like a dairy barn in winter?

[Jim Tobias]

I certainly don't know for sure but my Koa guess is based on these photos. First one is the actual piece. The others are from the Wood Database.20210331_154733.jpgScreenshot_20210331-211617_Chrome.jpgScreenshot_20210331-211602_Chrome.jpgScreenshot_20210331-211550_Chrome.jpg

[John K Jordan]

Elm-nearly positive. Did it smell like a dairy barn in winter?

Elm and Hackberry have distinctive wavy bands in the latewood bands...

Elm_Hackberry.jpg

...but what little I can see of the latewood end grain in the bowl photos looks different to me. It would be nice to see the wood in hand. With razor blade and magnifier.

JKJ

[kevin nee]

I had a piece that I was told was maple. When I turned it, I realized it was definitely not Maple. I sent a piece of the cutoff to
https://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/research/c...dfactsheet.php. In about a week they got back to me that it was Elm.
This is a free service. Sounds like a score getting blanks from a world traveler
Good luck, Kevin

[Jim Tobias]

Elm and Hackberry have distinctive wavy bands in the latewood bands...

Elm_Hackberry.jpg

...but what little I can see of the latewood end grain in the bowl photos looks different to me. It would be nice to see the wood in hand. With razor blade and magnifier.

JKJ

John,
This is a piece of the cutoff when I cut out he bowl blank. I used a card scraper on it to get it as smooth as I could. The closest is 10X with my phone.20210402_150032.jpg20210402_150159.jpg20210402_150141.jpg20210402_150110.jpg

[John K Jordan]

Doesn't look like wood I'm familiar with. There are a number of species that have basically horizontal bands of pores not as connected as the elm and hackberry. For example, marblewood is somewhat similar but the color pattern is not the same. The color and figure of the end grain you show somewhat remind me of Goncolo Alves but the pores on the pieces I have here look smaller and not as distinct as what you are holding. You might compare with pictures on hobbithouseinc - here's the page for Goncolo Alves if you are interested (http://www.hobbithouseinc.com/person...lo%20alves.htm) This site is great for illustrating the wide variations within a species - he has SO many photos for each wood!

If you have a candidate or two another thing to do is calculate the density of the wood (cut a rectangular block and measure and weigh) and compare to candidates to see if it's in the ballpark.

I recommend sending a SMALL sample to the lab in the "Still Stumped?" section at the bottom of the wood ID page on the Wood Database: https://www.wood-database.com/wood-a...ication-guide/
They will ID up to 3 sample per year (used to be 5!) for any US citizen. From my experience they usually don't ID the exact species but may be able to identify the genus, even with exotics, especially if it's a common one.

Or do what many do - make a guess, put a name on the piece, and chances are no one else will know either.

[Jim Tobias]

Thanks John. I think I am going with the last suggestion...
"Or do what many do - make a guess, put a name on the piece, and chances are no one else will know either."
I may send off a piece just to go through that process with the organization and see what happens.
The gentlemen who had all of this wood before me was in the Air Force and travelled all over ....and seemingly bought wood at every stop. About 50% of it is marked/labeled, the other half is unmarked. I can identify about half of that unmarked portion and the other half is a crapshoot. To me, when there is a lot of figure/curl/burl, it makes it very difficult.

Thanks for all the help,
Jim

[Don Orr]

OK, upon further review I could be wrong. Don't tell my wife I said that! One of the many, many Acacias is another possibility. I have been working with Black Locust (Robinia pseudoacacia) lately and it has a very similar appearance. That is PSEUDOacacia, not an actual Acacia though.