Skip Find - Wood ID

[Marineboy]

I rescued a coffee table from a skip yesterday. It has them label ‘Bradley, England’. I’ve googled this and it seems to be reasonably high end (machine cut dovetails for the drawer). It was damaged and incomplete, the inset glass top was missing and the drawer bottom had been hacked into, but once knocked apart it has yielded some nice bits. The top (where the glass was inset) will make a nice mirror frame, and the middle shelf is made from dense 18mm chipboard faced with mahogany veneered 6mm MDF. This is very rigid so I’m thinking I might use it to make a new router table.

The bottom frame and the rails are made from two different hardwoods, which is where I’m looking for some help to ID it. I attach a photo of the planed surfaces. The wood feels reasonably light, certainly not as dense as oak.

 

[LancsRick]

I'd still say oak for the left piece. On the right what is the grain like? I think it's beech.

 

[Marineboy]

Thanks for the opinion but the one you think may be oak has neither the figuring nor the weight. The other is definitely not beech. It’s close grained but not as hard as beech, you can make a slight impression with your fingernail in it (and the other piece) but not as soft as pine. I’m thinking the right hand one could be obeche.

 

[thick_mike]

The left one looks like sapele to me.

Could the right one be poplar/tulip?

 

[Jacob]

Wild guess but the pale wood could be horse chestnut. It was used a lot in cheap furniture as it's not much use for anything else. It's softish, pale beige colour, plain appearance, silky planed surface, easy to machine, available in wide widths.

 

[Marineboy]

I should have thought of tulipwood. Our porch door I know is tulipwood and it definitely matches the sample. I thought sapele was heavier but perhaps I’ve been deceived by the relative thinness of the piece.

 

[Marineboy]

Thanks for your suggestion Jacob, but I’m tending towards tulipwood now.

 

[thetyreman]

I think the left one is meranti/white lauan, cheers.

 

[Marineboy]

Thanks Tyreman and everyone else who’s replied. Some diverse opinions there but my interest in knowing the wood is more academic than necessary, by which I mean it is nice, straight grained timber which will be added to my oddments pile and will come in handy sooner or later.

 

[ED65]

My two bits, a fairly confident mahogany-alike for the left board (poss. meranti) and a wild stab at poplar for the right one, although Jacob's suggestion of horse chestnut had me second guessing that for a bit. But from the few small pieces I've used I don't think it's quite like this, and as this is a freshly planed surface I'd have expected it to be much paler although of course wood can vary so much in colour and grain.

As always a good closeup of the well-smoothed end grain would be most helpful for a firmer ID.

 

[Marineboy]

I never thought of the end grain giving better clues. Will take photos later today.

 

[Marineboy]

Not sure if these provide any more clues. I applied some sanding sealer to try and highlight what grain there is.

 

[chiokli]

I would throw my guess for the left one as iroko. The grain and pores look very familiar to a bunch of workbenches I've salvaged and stocked up.

 

[ED65]

The lighter wood doesn't have any very distinct features that point away from poplar. If it is poplar it should be quite light and noticeably soft for a hardwood, in the same ballpark as Scots pine.

I think we can be pretty sure the darker one is not iroko. If you look at magnifications of the end grain of iroko there's a certain characteristic that gives it a speckled appearance, light on dark, which is absent in the shot above.

 

[thetyreman]

meranti and poplar