phinds

Well, I started working on it and for some reason I focused in on a feature of your wood that seemed a bit odd to me, but I found a sample of "teak" that has it so was very pleased with myself until I realized that it really wasn't teak at all but rather an obscure wood (Baikiaea plurijuga) that has "Rhodesian teak" as one of its common names. Also that wood really doesn't have a face grain that is a close match for your wood. SO ... no joy so far Just FYI, the feature I was looking at is what appears to be "diffuse in aggregates" parenchyma (broken up banded parenchyma) but that seems unusually regular for diffuse in aggregates. Here's your wood with an example of the feature circled and then the same thing on the "teak" piece SO ... back to square one. EDIT: I realize this post doesn't tell you anything useful, I just put it up to show what a PITA this wood ID can be and to further excuse my long delay in getting to this.

Coop, I have not forgotten about this, I've just had all my energy focused elsewhere. I get like this sometimes where I just don't want to buckle down and do the hard work of digging through a bunch of my wood anatomy material. I WILL get to it. Someday. Probably. Maybe. Most likely. It's on my list

A fair point

Don't think so. I fades the heartwood color so it is less attractive

Really? I thought the steaming was done to totally merge the heartwood and sapwood colors.

I assume you are talking about the wood ID site, but I actually do have a database. It's for wood names: http://www.hobbithouseinc.com/wood_name_database/

Definitely better but I'm puzzled by what I can see of the anatomy and have to dig into this a bit more before I can say anything except that it's definitely not one of the American mahoganies (Cuban or Honduran) since it lacks the marginal parenchyma that is characteristic of those two.

Sanding is the thing to do, well-sanded up to about 320 grit and DO NOT use anything that will moisten the wood. Wetting is great for showing off the face grain, but it just raises the fibers in the end grain and muddies the details. Also, you'll need more magnification on the pic. Even fine sanding may not help much if you show the same resolution you show above.

I'd bet against teak but really can't tell anything for sure without a much better closeup of a well-cleaned-up section of end grain. African mahogany is a possibility but again, nothing for sure.

Yeah, they don't look anywhere near as old and decrepit as I do and I'm not even close to 300 yet.

ANY oak can have tight rings or loose rings. It depends on the rainfall and other growing conditions. Also, live oaks have a different pore structure and are easily distinguishable from other red and white oaks but they still don't look like chestnut in the end grain.

Well, the face grain of white oak can look a bit like chestnut but chestnut never has the ray flakes that show up (if you know what to look for) even in the most flat cut pieces of oak, to say nothing of the completely different look of quartersawn pieces between oak and chestnut.

Coop, there is no way this is chestnut. I can't see the end grain details very well at this level of magnification, but I CAN see clearly that this has moderately strong rays which immediately rules out chestnut. As to what it IS, I'd have to see better details on the end grain but it's a fairly good guess that it's oak (but don't bet money on that unless you get good odds )

Exactly. And the idea that this is not a defect in the product is patently absurd.

First update since early last year contains dozens of corrections, additions, and more synonyms. Functionality of the app is unchanged. http://www.hobbithouseinc.com/wood_name_database/ the data set contains: 170,000+ combinations of common name/species name (based on the raw data as follows) 140,000+ common names 26,000+ species names 300+ family names