Does it turn smooth? Sweetgum can smell as described, but it turns and finishes much smoother than hickory.
Sweetgum Pic from: https://www.extension.purdue.edu/ext.../FNR-300-W.pdf
sweetgum.jpg
I have turned quite a few pieces of Hickory from logs, and have never seen a Hickory log with that much sapwood, or better light colored wood and little dark wood, also the hickory wood has more year ring early and late wood showing than what the OP’s log is showing.
To me that wood is Sweetgum, a good picture is shown right above in Karl’s post, where you also can see the large amount of light wood, I do have pictures of pieces that I turned, and you can see and compare the sapwood of the Hickory and the grain that is showing on them.
Hickory platter.jpgBitternut Hickory.jpgHickory plate.jpgHickory.jpgHickory knitting bowl.jpgHickory roughout.jpg Sweetgum wood.jpg
Last edited by Leo Van Der Loo; 06-07-2018 at 11:14 PM.
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Hickory is ring porous, SG is not.
Guesses, guesses! Once again, spend a minute with a single-edged razor blade and clean off a tiny piece of end grain.
You may not be able to say what it IS for sure, but you can certainly see what it IS NOT and cannot possibly be, give the choice between sweetgum and hickory. You can do this without a magnifier, just your eye.
Sweetgum and Hickory, from the Wood Database, 10x magnification of end grain.
sweetgum.jpg hickory.jpg
Disregard the color. Look at the rings and pores. It's not possible to confuse one with the other when you look closely.
JKJ
Leo, that bowl you show is surely hickory--SG has 0 growth rings --almost impossible to age in a lab--your wood appears to be ring porous and the color is surely hickory. SW heart is a product of age and not size being present in trees of 100 years and up--I harvest one every other year in my yard and they have to be dying in the tops to have pretty heartwood.
Last edited by robert baccus; 06-08-2018 at 6:40 PM.
It does turn smooth, preferably when it is greenish--it has no open, growth rings that are visible and is very fine grained consequently. I sell urns from SG with dark heartwood and the finish like glas.
SG turns like butter when greenish--has no growth rings unlike hickory, and does have a tendency to warp--not so much with dark heart and spindle turned--the sap warps like crazy however. Stunning beautiful if you can very old trees with dark heart often called red gum or even satin walnut.
Bob, I did show the Hickory bowls to show that what the OP was showing, wasn’t Hickory, as was suggested by some, and yes Hickory is ring porous and it is easily to see that on smooth polished wood, the reason for the pictures.
Also Hickory does not have a lot of sapwood, and certainly not as much as the light colored wood that Sweetgum shows, besides the year rings that are easily seen in the Hickory are near invisible in the Sweetgum and like the wood in the OP’s picture.
So yes I do believe it is Sweetgum what the OP is showing , have a good day 1thumb.gif
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Sorry, dam computer!
I sorry I can't identify it but I have done hickory and it does not look like it to me. The bark is to smooth and not showing the shaggy roughness and the cross cut even though machine cut is not stringy as I remember what I dealt with.
The word hickory is not a unique noun--there are many hickory's in tht US. Many are crosshatched bark and very rough and some are very smooth--hard to ID on just this. My Wood tech textbook lists 8 if you include the "pecan hickory"s as well.
Robert, What did you mean by saying SG "has no growth rings"? Growth rings can be seen in many of the end grain pics here:
http://www.hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/gum.htm
Anyway, you're right about Red Gum being stunningly beautiful. It becoming one of my favorite woods to turn.
Here's a sweet gum platter that I finished recently:
SweetGumPlatter.jpg
SG turns like butter when greenish--has no growth rings unlike hickory, and does have a tendency to warp--not so much with dark heart and spindle turned--the sap warps like crazy however. Stunning beautiful if you can very old trees with dark heart often called red gum or even satin walnut.
Robert is comparing the growth rings as seen in Hickory as compared to Sweetgum/Redgum I think, and he is correct I would say, in that yes the year rings are often very indistinct as seen in these pictures, and then compared to the Hickory year rings in the other pictures, .. note the narrow sapwood in Hickory.
oh and yes a very nice platter indeed.
sweet gum end grain.jpgSweetgum endgrain.jpgHickory endgrain wet.jpgHickory end grain .jpg
Last edited by Leo Van Der Loo; 06-12-2018 at 11:21 PM.
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