Another Wood Identification

[Mike.C]

Can anyone identify this timber? It was thought to be brown oak from a church (and until cut into was extremely dirty from laying outside for many years), but now I am doubtful to say the least. PLEASE SEE A FULL EXPLANATION IN MY THIRD POST DOWN WHICH I SHOULD HAVE PUT HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE.

[/img]

[/img]

Cheers

Mike

 

[Dr Repper]

Difficult to tell, could be beech? Goes very pink when steamed.

Edit: ignore that, the grain is totally wrong for beech.

 

[Oryxdesign]

Perhaps iroko?

 

[studders]

Dunno Mike but nice drive by with the square. :lol:

 

[Mike.C]

Dunno Mike but nice drive by with the square. :lol:

Ha ha yeah I just noticed that myself. I am doing a review on a few mitre gauges and was using the square to show their accurate they are.

Cheers

Mike

 

[LocalOak]

Having done a lot of work on iroko ex school bench tops I reckon iroko is a reasonable guess, but just that, a reasonable guess.

Toby

 

[stevebuk]

could be Ropala also..

 

[Ironballs]

Any smell?

 

[OPJ]

Doesn't look like brown oak to me.

To me, this looks more like another one of those African timbers - possibly sapele or afromosia; something like that.

Do you have any other lengths or photos with more 'character' in the grain?

 

[Mike.C]

Doesn't look like brown oak to me.

To me, this looks more like another one of those African timbers - possibly sapele or afromosia; something like that.

Do you have any other lengths or photos with more 'character' in the grain?

No but I will take some.

I really should have explained in the first place a bit of the history behind the timber and why until yesterday we just took it for granted that it was brown oak. SWMBO is always complaining that because I know what I am talking about, I do not think about explaining the story to others.

My step dad was given it about 3 or 4 years ago from a builder friend, and he had got them from a 300 year old church. According to the caretaker these boards (20 of them) had been stacked in the cellar since he first started attending the church about 50 years ago, and then when a new vicar took over they were thrown outside and left for about 5 years. Well you can imagine that by the time he got them, after laying in the rain and mud for all this time they were pretty dirty (black in fact) and needed drying out.
There was one board that due to being protected in the middle of the pile, was a bit gray but after being stacked for about 6 months it was dry enough to plane, and after finding and planing out a lot of dirty shakes in the wood we were left with some very nice brown oak.

Now the rest of timber was much to wet to plane and so it was sticked for the last few years, and on recently testing it the moisture content was down to 10, and so to see what it was like I just sliced a piece off the side and ended up with the above, which is nothing like the brown oak plank of 3 years ago.

When he was told it was all brown oak and the first plank was, we took it for granted that it was all the same. It is certainly all hardwood because every 18 foot length is like lifting a lump of concrete, but as they are all still black I am going to have to wait until I plane them to see if it is all the same, and what it is.

I am going to need a few sets of planer blades before I am finished.

Cheers

Mike

 

[wizer]

To me, this looks more like another one of those African timbers - possibly sapele or afromosia; something like that.

I agree with this, It's one of those relations of Mahogany. Iroko would be my first guess with either Sapele or Utile being second.

Afromosa is normally darker\browner and the grain is different