what wood?

[mr]

Evening all,
spent yesterday helping a relative clear a basement and attic and came away with a few bits and pieces otherwise destined for the skip, one of which was a large heavy record no3 bench vice, in need of a bit of a clean up but otherwise sound. Also dragged home a few boards most of which are of the the one type with one which is different. Most of them are a heavy dense brown colour the other is a heavy dense reddish colour. Any ideas as to what they might be? The reddish one looks similar to a black walnut plank I have laying around but Im not convinced. Any suggestions?

cheers Mike

Looking at the pics here the top one is the brownish one and the lower one is reddy brown.

 

[Scrit]

Reddish, coarse - meranti?

Scrit

 

[mr]

Scrit thanks
I think you might be right about the meranti from what Ive read. The chap whose basement it came from was a keen yacht sailor and I understand Meranti has uses for decking etc. Just have to dream up something to do with it now.
Cheers Mike

 

[JFC]

Id have said oak but you mention reddish colour . Maybe japanese oak ?Meranti is not boat material at least not the stuff we get now .
:-k

 

[mr]

I was initially wondering whether it might be oak, I thought the other stuff was. But the reddish planks is a very deep dark colour, as I said I had thought it looked like the Walnut I have but redder, almost purple in its rough state
Cheers Mike

 

[JFC]

Teak is dark brown / reddish / light/ :-k as is Iroko and the timber does look oily from the pic . ](*,)

 

[Scrit]

I reckon the colour is wrong for either iroko or teak. Teak is normally not so coarse grained, IMHO. I guessed meranti because it used to vary tremendously in both weight and colour from fairly dense to quite light and from dark red to pale brown. Other than where it comes from (Indonesia?) is it used in yachts?

Scrit

 

[mr]

Thanks Chaps for your suggestions here, the wood is very glossy straight from the plane which Im taking to mean oily. Also quite coarse / open grained it seems. The whole board is very heavy and just "feels" very solid / dense. Would an endgrain picture help? I didnt plane the end , but I could then get some day light pics tomorrow. Everything in my workshop changes colour in photographs it seems, because of the neon strip lighting.
Cheers Mike

 

[houtslager]

Don't forget your other senses - SMELL how does it smell when youo plane it, and when you cut it. Let us know then maybe we can narrow the choice of timber down.

 

[mr]

I did have a sniff when planing the muck off the surface but there was no discernable smell. Mind you that could be down to my poor sense of smell.
Cheers Mike

 

[JFC]

It does look like Meranti , push some through your table saw and if you sneeze then its Meranti for sure . :lol: