Another "what's my wood?" thread

[sploo]

I've been given a few freshly felled logs; which I've cut up with a chainsaw. I assume they're native British trees (felled locally in the Yorkshire area), but I'm unsure what these ones are.

The local pine is pretty obvious - not particularly dense grain, and recognisable odour when cutting, but these are a more "buttery" texture with quite pronounced pink tints.

Anyone able to educate me?

 

[Fitzroy]

Ash would be my guess, but it's a fairly guessy guess.

F.

 

[sploo]

I'd be happy if it were ash. I've not weighed the various logs but it's definitely more dense than the pine.

My skills at identifying trees from the bark (apart from silver birch ) aren't exactly great.

 

[Woody2Shoes]

It doesn't look like ash to me (bark is not smooth and is too thick and the colour/texture of wood is not right - too yellow and not enough variation in colour between the growth rings). My bet would be on lime (tilia sp.) - this has a distinctive smell.

If you could plane up a small piece (and describe the smell!) we might have more clues...

Cheers, W2S

PS is the bark quite fibrous? The "bast" fibre is why the Americans call it Bass(t) Wood...

 

[sploo]

It doesn't look like ash to me (bark is not smooth and is too thick and the colour/texture of wood is not right - too yellow and not enough variation in colour between the growth rings). My bet would be on lime (tilia sp.) - this has a distinctive smell.

If you could plane up a small piece (and describe the smell!) we might have more clues...

Cheers, W2S

PS is the bark quite fibrous? The "bast" fibre is why the Americans call it Bass(t) Wood...

The bark matches photos I've seen for a mature ash tree, but I do have some bits I could plane. I don't recall it having any obvious odour after cutting with a chainsaw.

 

[Beau]

Willow has a pinkish tinge and the bark looks right. Usually dripping wet when fresh cut so heavy but is light when dried

Edit. clicked on the picture for closer look and it's very slow growing for a willow. Can see why someone mentions ash as the grain looks right but the bark does not. Sorry not very helpful

 

[CHJ]

Might be of some help

 

[Woody2Shoes]

I think it is actually willow (which also has fibrous bast in/under its bark), but it still could be lime (the smell test would help answer that!). It really doesn't look like ash to me.

Cheers, W2S

 

[ED65]

The grain of ash is reasonably distinctive so if you plane down a piece it'll help rule that in or out.

If you force-dry a bit of the wood in the microwave the hardness will certainly tell you if it's more likely to be willow or ash! Willow is light as already noted and not at all hard. You're probably familiar with ash from old chisel handles and it's nearly three times harder than willow.

My skills at identifying trees from the bark (apart from silver birch ) aren't exactly great.

Bark is not a reliable guide anyway. Obviously some species are pretty recognisable but I believe the bark is the least useful thing to try to go on since it can vary so much from tree to tree. You see this in park trees sometimes where for no apparent reason two neighbouring trees of the same species, sometimes of very similar age, have bark on the trunk that looks nothing alike.

The end grain tends to be the most useful feature. In this case the Wood Database says willow has small pores that can look nearly diffuse-porous, ash has some easily seen large pores that are distinctly confined to the earlywood.

 

[Cinimod]

+1 for Willow, both the bark and timber look correct to me.........dom

 

[sploo]

OK - so I might be about to throw an unintentional curveball: I planed down an offcut this evening (photos below).

I think it was a corner from one of the larger bowl blanks I made, and not a piece from the logs in my other photos. As such, it *might* be a different species (thus I'm providing the wrong evidence). But, none of the pieces in my offcuts pile now display the strong pink tint shown in my early photos (but they have been outside for a couple of weeks.

The paper towel under the piece was just so that I'd have something to reference a good colour balance.

There's some very nice quilting on one face. No obvious odour when planing. Does that help identify the species?

 

[sploo]

With a bit more research, I understand this would be described as ring-porous:

That would include ash and oak. Maybe not willow?

EDIT: It does look a lot like the end grain pics here http://www.wood-database.com/european-ash/

 

[ED65]

Well that looks very much like ash to me.

 

[Beau]

Ash almost certainly.

 

[paulm]

Yep, very ash like

 

[sploo]

Thanks. Well, that does mean I've got a nice 40cm diameter / 12cm tall ash blank for free. No time to turn it at the moment (house move: lathe is still in mothballs) so I've already entombed it in a coat of PVA to try to stop it cracking too much while it dries.

I think I've found a chunk that is from the same stock as the logs I showed earlier so I'll do the same investigation and see if I can get some photos from that.

 

[Fitzroy]

I feel redeemed.

 

[Beau]

Interestingly I was logging a whole pile of ash today and noticed the pinky tinge on some pieces. Only showed on the end grain and invisible on the split face. I must have cut 100s of tonnes of ash over the years and never noticed before but this thread got me looking for it. Every day is a school day

 

[sploo]

In the first post in the thread the log that was split in half has its bark removed and has been coated in PVA to hopefully reduce cracking. I used a saw to take a thin sliver off the end in order to get some shots of the end grain.

This is what it looks like (on the right) with the now-identified-as-ash section (on the left):

In the photo they don't look that different in colour, but the left piece is actually much darker (and darker than any ash I've ever bought). The grain of the unidentified log does look similar though:

I then re-coated the end section in a generous coat of PVA. Interestingly, once it'd dried, the pink colour returned:

So... also ash?

 

[sploo]

I also took the thin sliver I cut from that log and weighed it (32 grams). Several 30s bursts in the microwave later it'd reduced to 29g (after 60s), 27g (after 120s), then 26.5 (after 210s) and has now stayed at that weight.

Based on the formula of ((initial weight - dry weight) / dry weight) * 100, that would put the moisture content at ~21%, which seems feasible.