Can someone help me identify this wood? To me the bark looks like a hardwood tree but the wood itself is soft. Any ideas? I 
turned a vase from it and it felt like soft wood.
turned a vase from it and it felt like soft wood.
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Wood id help
- Thread starter Barry Holman
- Start date
I think it is Linden wood aka Basswood
Bark looks like Linden/Basswood, a soft hardwood,
Thanks!
Basswood is diffuse porous. That doesn't look diffuse porous to me, much stronger ring porous. I'd say it looks more like ash, but I don't see any heart wood color. Sorry, I don't have a guess.
Paulonia ±
Nope. not paulonia. Bark isn't right.
Bob
I always wondered about turning logs like that. Doesn’t the finished piece split because of the pith?
I always wondered about turning logs like that. Doesn’t the finished piece split because of the pith?
Realizing that's not always possible, having leaves from the tree makes identification infinitely easier.
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The wood is sort of like catalpa but the bark is a little rougher than the catalpa samples I've run across.
With 95% of woods. that would split wide open after drying but paulonia is one of those trees that has extremely good manners about not getting drying checks.
My son turned that in 2004 and it's still good.
Nice piece!!
And...is that a Subaru Brat hauling that wood? If so, i'm impressed!!
My guess is white ash that has been dead for a while. I turned a candle stick holder and the grain looked identical to that and the bark looked like that. The tree I got was killed by emerald ash borer. The wood was softer than oak. I agree that the bark sort of looks like basswood also.
Barry, looks like Ash to me. I get a lot of it and the bark is a match. The wood being soft may be due to it spalting and getting a bit punky.
A Subaru Brat it is. My brother in law had it. He passed away so now it is one of my nephew's most prized possession from his dad's legacy. The photos were taken in July of 2003. They had cut down a bit catalpa tree. That is one of the smelliest wood I've ever worked. Also, it made the tile floor greasy slick. I roughed out that lot into bowl blanks (rough turned bowls). I only took a few to finish.
That's a lot of sealer for catalpa. Nothing dries as easily and quickly as catalpa. Never had a piece crack during storage or drying.
The bark of basswood and black ash are very similar and many times are hard to tell one from the other. I live in a very rural part of northern Minnesota at the end of the maintained roads where most of the land to the north of my property is tax forfeited forest land it contains both basswood and ash together where if the leaves have fallen it is difficult to tell one from the other. The turned piece could never be mistaken for basswood and also the end grain on the cross cut logs show the ring porous feature that is not a part of basswood.
Picture this ash ( the tree had compound pinnate leaves) goblet with a stain that would darken open porous grain similar to the turned piece then compare it to a basswood carving block and the only conclusion is it is ash.
I'm with Randy. It's spalted, so you can't use hardness as an indicator of what wood it it.
It was my first time with catalpa. At the time I didn't know it was that stable. I treated it like any other wood. I know to avoid that species now. Live and learn.
Barry's sample log looks like it grew extremely fast like catalpa and paulonia. It could be a trash tree that got out of hand like a paradise.
The turned piece is clearly ring porous like ash, but there are so many ring porous species that look like that.
Ash is not a light weight wood, Linden is, Linden also has this corky like bark where Ash does not, Ash bark also has the ridges crossing where with Linden it is much more straight.
Where Ash latewood is darker the OP's shows light colored latewood.
So I keep it with Linden wood.
Where Ash latewood is darker the OP's shows light colored latewood.
So I keep it with Linden wood.
Ash
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I also vote for ash. Here’s a slightly spalted ash bowl I turned several years ago. While I’m sure spalting can look similar on different woods, in your third picture of the raw log, the spalting lines look just like this to me.
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Leo, where you say latewood, do you mean heartwood? I’ve cut plenty of ash, including the bowl above, with only near white heartwood as well as sapwood, although most of what I get does have brown heartwood like this one
My first thought was ash. Bark looks right. Not catalpa as the smell would give it away, and I do not like that smell. Ash is not really hard, but not soft. Big old ash trees can have brown heart wood, and that color just flies off of the shelf. I also did some where I had been finishing some walnut, and the dust from the walnut highlighted the pores like the picture you have. Once it gets into those pores, you can not get it out, but I didn't want to anyway. No clue about basswood. One of my sisters was an interpreter for a wild life sanctuary out side Kansas City. She had a basswood tree that went down and asked me what to do with it. I told her to try to find some carvers in the area. She got back to me and said, 'they took every single piece of it'.
robo hippy
robo hippy
Thanks Lou, no the Early and Late wood are the two parts of the yearly growth rings, where the Early growth wood is the fast growth of the spring and the Late wood is the slow growth of the summer/fall wood, shown in the picture below, the darker heartwood is usually a result of mineral take-up where some trees of the same species can have darker wood area and others are light all throughout.
The 2 pictures of the White Ash bowls let you see that some have the darker wood and the others are completely light, all because of where they grew.
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Leo, I understand spring wood and summer wood. I was only asking because I think of ash as having pretty uniform color across the grain, as opposed to something like some of the oaks, or perhaps locust or Osage orange. Density of cells is another matter. But thanks for your clarification.
I've worked ash that was half the weight of other ash. There are something like 45 genus in the Ash family. Density is kg/cubic meter
| Ash, white | 650 - 850 |
| Ash, black | 540 |
| Ash, European | 710 |
Yes not all the same species do have the same weight, I bet spalted Linden would weight less than 1/3 of White Ash, as solid Linden can be 1/2 the weight of White Ash.
I’ve turned ash before and do not believe it’s ash. Freshly cut live tree, doubt spalting.
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I believe the black lines in the cross section on your original post are spalting.
If you want to know for sure, send a chunk to the USDA forest products lab. They will analyze it and give you a written report for free. Instructions on their web site
Ash is what they make baseball bats out of. It is anything but soft. If I were to look at that and was told it was ash, I'd believe it since it looks enough like ash. Maybe I'll take a look the next time I'm up 29
I just read somewhere in the last couple days that not 1 ash bat was used in the major leagues this past season, Ash bats are a thing of the past.
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I'd have to agree with Ash - I have a sizable pile of ash logs that look exactly like the O.P. If it is soft I'd say because it's been a dead tree - a lot of the ash that was cut down (that I salvaged some of the logs from) was already dead, and chainsaw cut through some spots like it was cutting air.
Two of the best wood identifiers on the internet can be found hanging out on Woodbarter.com. Just be prepared to post a sanded and magnified pic of the end grain. Anyone who is a woodworker can join at no cost. WB is a great place to find unusual turning wood, or just talk about anything wood working related. Great sister site to AAW If you’re addicted to wood.