• Beware of Counterfeit Woodturning Tools (click here for details)
  • Johnathan Silwones is starting a new AAW chapter, Southern Alleghenies Woodturners, in Johnstown, PA. (click here for details)
  • Congratulations to Paul May for "Checkerboard (ver 3.0)" being selected as Turning of the Week for March 25, 2024 (click here for details)
  • Welcome new registering member. Your username must be your real First and Last name (for example: John Doe). "Screen names" and "handles" are not allowed and your registration will be deleted if you don't use your real name. Also, do not use all caps nor all lower case.

Wood identification puzzle

Joined
Jan 23, 2020
Messages
689
Likes
955
Location
Shingletown CA
I had this log that was from the area of the tri cities in eastern Washington state. It is rock hard yet somewhat lite in weight. Very dark chocolate color and smells somewhat like cedar. I'm leaning towards pecan but it could be anything. Your guess??
It pretty much completely dulled a brand new bi metal lenox blade on my bandsaw. It is not walnut, that I'm sure of.

IMG_7071.JPG IMG_7076.JPG
 

odie

TOTW Team
Joined
Dec 22, 2006
Messages
7,072
Likes
9,470
Location
Panning for Montana gold, with Betsy, the mule!
My guess would have been walnut, but you nixed that! :D

I've seen this same inquiry over and over again on these forums, and the same theme seems to be recurring......It's difficult to positively identify many specific examples of woods from a photograph. Sometimes, the answer is apparent, but you would think that, with all the "experienced" eyes lurking on these forums, the more difficult answers would be a cinch........but, not so! o_O

Probably the best way to identify a questionable wood species from a photograph, is from a close-up of the end grain......and, then again, it would require someone who would want to do the research........

One of my best sources of research online is "the wood database", and I also have books by Eric Meier, and Terry Porter.

https://www.wood-database.com/

-----odie-----
 
Joined
Aug 14, 2007
Messages
5,435
Likes
2,792
Location
Eugene, OR
Well, I would think that it probably isn't black walnut, but maybe Persian/English walnut? That tends to be a lighter brown, and does smell different from the black walnut. I have found that walnut does dull all of my tools more than other woods. The cedar smell makes me wonder... I did get some butternut walnut once and it smelled more like vinegar than walnut, but that isn't a cedar type smell...

robo hippy
 
Joined
May 4, 2010
Messages
2,432
Likes
1,846
Location
Bozeman, MT
How large is the piece? There are some very hard woods that grow in desert areas, like the central Washington basin, or Utah/Nevada, but they would not get very big. 6-7" would be large for one of these. Mountain Mahogany would be one, though the species that grows in our area doesn't really look like what you've got. Anybody know what Salt Cedar looks like?

The dulling effect could be related to silica in the wood, rather than the hardness of the wood. Silica would correspond to growing in a desert environment, so consider a Rocky Mountain Juniper equivalent, that somehow got discolored. (checking the color/odor under the brown surface would be useful)

In the Tri-cities/Yakima areas, some sort of fruit or edible nut wood is always possible, though what you have doesn't look like any with which I'm familiar.

Last thing to consider is that it got burned. If there was a wildfire and whatever this is got rapidly toasted, it could have changed some of the wood characteristics, and that ribbed surface visible, might have been burned. (Or wind scoured.)
 
Joined
Feb 2, 2020
Messages
76
Likes
59
Location
Germantown, NC
Pecan is a very porous wood, I cant see any in the pic. I don’t think that is a hardwood.
The grain looks more like a conifer, my first thought was yew but it doesn’t have much of a smell. I agree with Dean about it looking like it was in a forest fire. It could be juniper, it’s very similar to yew and it does have more of a cedar smell but juniper is fairly soft. Janka hardness for juniper is only 630 pounds where yew is 1600, for comparison hard maple is 1450, walnut is 1150. It is very dark for either but heat from a brush fire will do that and make it much harder, especially if it was standing dead or injured and dying before the fire. If you can get a really clean cut on the end grain or sand it smooth and look at it with a 20 or 30 power jewelers loop and check for pores. If it doesn’t have pores it’s a conifer, all deciduous wood has pores. If you can post a good pic of smooth end grain we might be able to narrow it down better.
 
Joined
Aug 14, 2007
Messages
5,435
Likes
2,792
Location
Eugene, OR
Dean, I am pretty much positive that it isn't Mountain Mahogany. Some years back I got a bunch of it because the Forest Service down in Las Vegas was thinning for fire safety. You almost need a magnifying glass to see the rings on that stuff. Biggest ones were almost 18 inch diameter. My buddy had to show the guys at the Forest Service office how to write a firewood cutting permit... Wood score of a life time.

robo hippy
 
Joined
May 13, 2020
Messages
145
Likes
680
Location
Ontario, CA
Any chance it could be one of the harder coniferous woods? I had a piece from the west coast that was very similar in colour. The aroma when cut suggested it was a cedar, but was very hard like yours.
 
Joined
May 4, 2010
Messages
2,432
Likes
1,846
Location
Bozeman, MT
Dean, I am pretty much positive that it isn't Mountain Mahogany. Some years back I got a bunch of it because the Forest Service down in Las Vegas was thinning for fire safety. You almost need a magnifying glass to see the rings on that stuff. Biggest ones were almost 18 inch diameter. My buddy had to show the guys at the Forest Service office how to write a firewood cutting permit... Wood score of a life time.

robo hippy
I knew the Utah/Nevada mahogany was bigger that what we have up north, but 18"--Wow. That was a score. The BLM won't even give a permit to harvest it up here, but I was able to get a couple branches through the State lands office. I paid for a regular 10 cord firewood permit, but worth it. 7" was ginormous.
 
Joined
Aug 14, 2007
Messages
5,435
Likes
2,792
Location
Eugene, OR
Dean,
Apparently the issue was for 'fire safety' mostly about people having these big houses up in the mountains, and if tree cover/density is too high, the fire trucks won't be able to make it through. This thinning apparently is fairly common. The Mountain Mahogany is an important browse food for the animals all year long. None of the trees were over about 15 foot tall.

robo hippy
 
Back
Top