phinds Posted February 1, 2015 Report Share Posted February 1, 2015 Went down to the wilds of PA last week to visit my friend Mark Peet who is a bit of a wood scientist, a bit of an urban sawyer, and avid collector of wood samples. He loaned me another set of samples from his collection for me to take home and process, which is what I was expecting when I went down there to return the last batch he loaned me. As I was leaving he surprised me with 3 boxes of wood that I didn't even have time to look at since he was pressed for time and was politely shooing me out. When I got home I was like a kid in a candy store. I thought it was going to be mostly domestics but right away I was seeing such native PA woods as Brazilian tulipwood, Indonesian rosewood, Australian river redgum, Mexican bocote, and on and on. I am at the moment hugely frustrated by the fact that we are having a cold snap that makes it pretty much impossible for me to work in my unheated garage, so I now have another new batch of formal samples (not pictured) from Mark, a batch of 40 or so formal samples that I bought for myself from one of the better sample vendors, about 10 samples for David Clark of Australia who has them shipped to me for processing before I forward them to him, and now this fantastic batch of unprocessed samples from Mark which is going to take the most work of all. My work is cut out for me and I can't even get started. I think I'm going to either cry, laugh, scream, or cuss, or possibly all four pretty much at the same time ! Anyway here's most of the new haul from Mark. Not shown are another dozen woods that are not going on my site and the couple-dozen formal samples he also loaned me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColinF Posted February 1, 2015 Report Share Posted February 1, 2015 Wow, I need a wood scientist friend Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brendon_t Posted February 2, 2015 Report Share Posted February 2, 2015 That is quite cool. Now what do you do with the wood? You said they sent them for you to process. . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brendon_t Posted February 2, 2015 Report Share Posted February 2, 2015 It appears to me you are creating a sort of database by cataloging all these species, is that correct? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wdwerker Posted February 2, 2015 Report Share Posted February 2, 2015 Yes a wood database of sorts with accurate pictures. Getting pictures the correct colors for publishing on a webpage isn't that easy. For wood ID at his level clear pictures of end grain are important. Sanding and preparing samples for photography needs to be consistent so a lot of work goes into a new batch of samples ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brendon_t Posted February 2, 2015 Report Share Posted February 2, 2015 That's a very cool hobby/job. . Not sure Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phinds Posted February 2, 2015 Author Report Share Posted February 2, 2015 Well, I sometimes work at it as though it was a job but it's a hobby. I don't think of it as "cataloging" or "creating a database", it's just a book on wood. A BIG book, and one that's published on the internet instead of in hardback, but just a book. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coop Posted February 2, 2015 Report Share Posted February 2, 2015 I didn't see mayhaw listed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phinds Posted February 3, 2015 Author Report Share Posted February 3, 2015 I didn't see mayhaw listed. I can give you a list of approximately 150,000 common names of wood that are not mentioned on the site including about 25,000 different species. it is not my goal to list every wood in the world. For example, I have only a few dozen oaks out of the 600+ wood-producing species Quercus in North America. So you could make a very long list of all the oak species that are not there. Hawthorn IS listed on the site, in fact several different species of hawthorn are there, but Crataegus aestivalis is not one of them. There are over 70 species in the genus Crataegus of the family Rosaceae that have hawthorn as all or part of one or more of their common names so it's not too surprising that I don't have all of them If you have a sample that you can assure me is Crataegus aestivalis and you send it to me, I'll add it to the site, since hawthorn is there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coop Posted February 3, 2015 Report Share Posted February 3, 2015 I didn't know mayhaw was a Hawthorne. Interesting. Yes sir, I have a mayhaw that is multiple trunk and one of the trunks died last year and I cut an 18" piece off of it, just curious as to how it looked. Will be glad to send a pic or actually a slice (4"x18") if you like? And even some mayhaw berries to verify it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phinds Posted February 3, 2015 Author Report Share Posted February 3, 2015 I didn't know mayhaw was a Hawthorne. Interesting. Yes sir, I have a mayhaw that is multiple trunk and one of the trunks died last year and I cut an 18" piece off of it, just curious as to how it looked. Will be glad to send a pic or actually a slice (4"x18") if you like? And even some mayhaw berries to verify it. A small piece, at least slightly bigger than the IWCS formal sample size would be great. That way I can color-correct the pics and do my end grain fine sanding to show the anatomical structure. In case you haven't seen it, check this out: http://hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/_anatomy/growth%20rings/_growth%20rings.htm The formal sample size is 1/2" x 3" x 6" but slightly bigger, particularly slightly thicker, is even better. I wouldn't know the berries from a glass marble. I am only vaguely aware that planks actually come from trees ... I think of them as things that magically appear in lumber stores all dried and read to use I'll PM you my address. Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coop Posted February 3, 2015 Report Share Posted February 3, 2015 Paul, this has already been sliced on the bandsaw and as I mentioned in my pm, am sending you an outside pice with the bark attached with the thickness at the widest point of only 1". Will this still benefit you? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phinds Posted February 3, 2015 Author Report Share Posted February 3, 2015 Paul, this has already been sliced on the bandsaw and as I mentioned in my pm, am sending you an outside pice with the bark attached with the thickness at the widest point of only 1". Will this still benefit you? Yeah, sounds great since I prefer pieces with both heartwood and sapwood. Live edges are no help though and I generally just saw them off since they are part of those semi-mythical things called "trees" that I only half believe in. An inch thick is great. I have to live with half-inch on formal samples and I much prefer slightly thicker. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phinds Posted February 3, 2015 Author Report Share Posted February 3, 2015 How do you decide which species to feature on your site. You said you only have a handful of oaks - is that because they pretty much look the same? I try to get a good representation of all woods that are readily available to wood craftsmen in the USA. The more obscure oaks are not sold by name, they are just lumped by lumber yards into "red" and "white", so the fact that actually I have about 35 different Quercus species shown on some 10 different pages is serious overkill and I only have that many because (1) people send me or loan me samples (3) it's one of the species for which formal samples are mostly quite cheap, and (3)) some vendors do break out a few more than just "red" and "white" (but generally nowhere near as many as I have). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phinds Posted February 6, 2015 Author Report Share Posted February 6, 2015 Paul, this has already been sliced on the bandsaw and as I mentioned in my pm, am sending you an outside pice with the bark attached with the thickness at the widest point of only 1". Will this still benefit you? Ken, Got the piece today, looks great. Thanks again. I'll have it processed and up on the site sometime in our lifetimes (probably ... this is likely entail my living for at least several more weeks ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coop Posted February 6, 2015 Report Share Posted February 6, 2015 Will this kind of be like having a planet named after me Glad you received it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phinds Posted February 6, 2015 Author Report Share Posted February 6, 2015 Will this kind of be like having a planet named after me Glad you received it! Nah, more like a minor asteroid. Sorry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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