What am I looking at here?

[Scott Luallin]

Grabbed 3 BIG chunks of this from the wood pile at the recycle center. I am no arborist, so unless I know the actual source of the wood, can see the leaves, or it is REALLY obvious sometimes I can't tell.

Anyhow, phone app says cherry. We don't have a ton of cherry around here (or if we do it gets grabbed up quick from my source) but wanted some opinions.

thanks all!

--Scott

 

[Brian Gustin]

Easy way to tell, cut a slice off one end and give it a sniff test - cherry's pretty distinctive sweet cherry odor when freshly cut, but judging from the tannin stain and the bark, it could well be cherry, it appears

 

[Scott Luallin]

Thanks! I will have to enlist my wife for that test. I cannot smell! (haven't smelled a thing my entire life)

--Scott

 

[William Rogers]

You can also sand a piece of end grain and take a 10X photo with your phone and compare on the Wood Database.

 

[Lou Jacobs]

From the small horizontal lines on the bark it does look like a cherry to me. Maybe not black cherry (Prunus serotina), but maybe an ornamental cherry of some variety. The piece behind it in the top photo looks like it could be elm to me, but that’s just a guess. Ask your wife if it smells like piss!

 

[Richard Coers]

It’s quickly becoming firewood with no end treatment and all those cracks forming.

 

[Scott Luallin]

Yep! Took these pics when I got home after I salvaged these. Anchorseal since applied Cracks don't look like they are too deep so hopefully will be worth turning.

 

[Tim Connell]

Could also be honey locust. To check, use a black (UV) light and check for fluorescence. Honey and black locust will both show a bright yellow to yellow green.

Additionally, while your wife is sniffing, honey locust to me smells like warm spices, kind of like mulling spices.

 

[John K Jordan]

I strongly agree - look at the end grain.
Follow the instructions in section 7 here:

Wood Identification Guide | The Wood Database

www.wood-database.com

I wouldn't sand, since that can fill open pores and hide small pores, rays, and parenchyma, the wood database article tells about this. All that is needed is clean end grain and a small magnifier lens.

You can use a sharp knife to prepare the end grain but I find a single-edge razor blade better, as recommended in R. Bruce Hoadley's book "Identifying Wood". I buy them in packages of 100!

Only a small sample of end grain is needed, enough to examine two or three rings. I usually cut a piece just big enough to hold.

If the choice is between the guesses cherry and locust, for example, examining the endgrain would make that easy - cherry is distinctively diffuse porous while locust (honey or black) is ring porous. The black locust has pores chock full of easy-to-see tyloses, honey locust doesn't. Both fluoresce green under UV light and cherry doesn't. (I use 365nm UV flashlights.)

The bark looks far more like cherry than locust, but bark can be highly variable on different trees, different parts of the same tree, how it grew, if it was damaged at some point.

Or just cut it up, see how much good wood remains, and turn it! Call it "tree wood"

JKJ

 

[Cary Hulse]

Looks like sweet cherry (Prunus avium) to me.
And I agree, it will smell like cherry when it's cut if it is green.

 

[Wyatt Holm]

Looks like cherry or maybe apricot. I would turn it as soon as possible, at least cut it up into blanks.

 

[Donna Banfield]

I'm in agreement with @JohnKJordan and @TimConnell with their suggestion. Looks like Honey Locust, especially by looking at the bark. Locust bark has deep recesses, just like the log that sits behind your half-cut image. My experience with this wood is turn it green once to final thickness. If you turn it dry, it will be a very unpleasant event. Imagine trying to turn a block of concrete.

 

[rkriet]

I'm in agreement with @JohnKJordan and @TimConnell with their suggestion. Looks like Honey Locust, especially by looking at the bark. Locust bark has deep recesses, just like the log that sits behind your half-cut image. My experience with this wood is turn it green once to final thickness. If you turn it dry, it will be a very unpleasant event. Imagine trying to turn a block of concrete.

I agree, Donna. It looks very much like honey locust to me. And yes, I have turned dry, honey locust and it is very much like concrete!

 

[Bob Brown]

Locust

 

[John K Jordan]

And yes, I have turned dry, honey locust and it is very much like concrete!

Odd, I almost only turn dry wood - I cut logs sections like that into blanks and don't turn until they're dry. I don't remember anything unusual with dry locust, osage, and other hard woods. Maybe I use different tools. Or turn smaller things.

I remember a guy in our club speaking in "cursive" about turning a large bowl from dry hickory!

Ever turn dry Lyptus? (Plantation-grown eucalyptus hybrid)

One guy compared IT to concrete and swore sparks were coming off the piece he had on the lathe. I'd never heard of Lyptus and said I wanted to try. Instead he gave me the his 2nd blank. I made a bowl. This was almost 20 years ago, having fun experimenting with designs.



JKJ

 

[Webb Willmott]

Janka scale for Honey Locust is 1580 which puts it just above hard maple.

 

[Sam Fleisher]

The bigger pieces look like black locust to me. Are all three supposed to be from the same tree?

 

[Richard Coers]

Yep! Took these pics when I got home after I salvaged these. Anchorseal since applied Cracks don't look like they are too deep so hopefully will be worth turning.

Gauging crack depth looking at the end of a log is not a reliable way to do it. You are just hoping and guessing. Anchorseal after it cracks has little effect.

 

[Dean Center]

The OP's home town has lots of good sized thornless/seedless honey locust. "Canada red cherry" (Prunus virginiana), is a horticultural cherry family member akin to chokecherry that could also look like that and is not rare in the area.

 

[Scott Luallin]

Thanks all for the replies! Update on my thoughts:

I cannot be sure the tree pieces are all from the same tree. I snagged them at the recycle center near each other, but there is no way to know. 100% of the what I KNOW to be honey locust I have found locally and turned has bark that looks like this image (Googlefu says this is thornless HL) - lots of texture and channels in the bark.



And the ring lines are tight and confined to the middle of the wood, not broad and spread out like the image I shared in the post. Here are two pieces I have turned:





Here is another look at the bark of one of the other pieces:



What's funny, is I can find internet images of other locust varieties AS WELL AS cherry that match this bark exactly, so it is well within the realm of possibility it is a HL but a type I have never come across before - I've only been turning 8 months!

Wife's smell test was inconclusive. "Maybe slightly sweet, but no real strong notes??"

I will try a 10x picture tomorrow, but thanks for sleuthing this with me!

--Scott

 

[Scott Luallin]

The OP's home town has lots of good sized thornless/seedless honey locust. "Canada red cherry" (Prunus virginiana), is a horticultural cherry family member akin to chokecherry that could also look like that and is not rare in the area.

Interestingly, Loveland, Co has a pretty rich cherry history. I am surprised I don't run across more of it:

"Loveland, CO, was once the center of a massive cherry industry, with over 10,000 acres of orchards in its peak period, from the late 1800s through the 1960s. The city, which held the largest orchard west of the Mississippi, produced over a million dollars in cherries annually in the 1920s, supported several canning factories, and even held a Cherry Blossom Festival. "

--Scott