Yet another wood ID thread


wtnhighlander

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This stick was sold to me as cherry, but scraping or planing does not reveal the pinkish color I expected to see. Here are a couple of close-up after scraping the surface.

First a face grain shot:

8995e31694eb94961e15b0cf8d1455a6.jpg

Then an edge grain shot:

e8f841228eeb4bdc319abdc18a469869.jpg

Sorry the lighting is uneven in both shots. I just snapped these with my phone, and my garage lighting leaves somewhat to be desired...

So, any opinions?

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Looks like leopardwood...how it would get mixed in with cherry, no idea.

Yeah, anything exotic is questionable. I got this from a co-worker who was cleaning out his barn. This and several other pieces were leftover from his late father's stash, and have been stacked in the barn for more than 15 years. No idea where it came from.
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I guess it could be so old that it oxidized through and through.  Can't say I've ever seen that before but I don't really deal with antiques or ancient wood.  How much material did you plane off?  It is in fact the color of very old cherry.

 

Keggers is right...that bottom photo looks more like the fleck of cherry.  I wasn't paying attention and thought I was looking at the face of a different board instead the edge grain of the same in the first.

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I truly doubt it is oxidized through. Poplar is not as dense and I have worked 150 year old poplar that is only oxidized about an eighth of an inch deep. Maybe your piece sat in the sun and has radiation change? I am curious to see deeper but would not destroy the utility of the piece just for that.

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Can't reall make out any details at all. What I can see, if I am interpreting it correctly and that's not at all clear since the details are just not visible, is that it is consitent with cherry and not with leopardwood. I am STILL convinced, however, that the second pic in your first set is not a pic of cherry.

 

Can you clean up the end grain and get a better pic?

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phinds - take a closer look at the second photo in the original post...it's deceiving because you think you're looking at face grain because of the size of the photos, but you're not...it's the edge and that fleck is tiny like you see in QS cherry.  It only looks like leopardwood because you think that edge grain is face grain.  I think it's cherry...very oxidized cherry.

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phinds - take a closer look at the second photo in the original post...it's deceiving because you think you're looking at face grain because of the size of the photos, but you're not...it's the edge and that fleck is tiny like you see in QS cherry.  It only looks like leopardwood because you think that edge grain is face grain.  I think it's cherry...very oxidized cherry.

I have never doubted for a minute that the flakes look exactly like some seen in cherry. What makes me think it's leopardwood and think it's not cherry, is the horizontal striations that are fairly clear in the lower left area of the 2nd pic. I can't see them well enough to be positive but if they are what I think they are then they are not like any cherry I've ever seen and they are exactly like leopardwood.

 

I DO agree that based only on the flakes it's more likely to be cherry, but those striations tell the tale.

 

@whthighlander, can you get a closer pic of that area along w/ the cleaned up end grain?

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That end grain is cherry if I've ever seen cherry end grain.  Leopardwood end grain shows medullary rays.  It's the second photo that's throwing things off...the rays and color fooled me at first as well...I think if there was a size reference in the photo it would be much more obvious.  I'm 99% that it's cherry.  But Mike is right - Ross, take off another sliver and give a good whiff...bet it smells like cherry.

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White oak smells like burnt popcorn to me.  I didn't find out until I started woodworking why I hated whiskey so much...it's not the liquor, it's the white oak taste.  Sickening sweet nastiness.

 

I agree about the poplar...wet underwear, indeed.  It's not as bad as zebrawood though.  That stuff is a dirty, wet dog in August.

 

The smell of walnut is the smell of woodworking to me.  When I come out to the shop in the morning when I'm in the middle of a walnut project, the smell just makes it feel...right.

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