wood id please

[Sawyer]

When I said that it was rare, I meant rare to be used for sleepers, rather than Elm being now rare due to Elm beetle.

Many moons ago when I was working for the council tree Dpt., we were given the odd job of "felling" a circle of old sleepers set upright in concrete as a play ground surrounding wall/fence. I guess the playground was due for demolition to be replaced with 1980s health and safety rubber bounciness. There were about fifty of them, two were Elm. V. surprising I concede but, nevertheless, there they were.

Mark, if you could get a jack plane (or plane of your choice) sharp enough to cut through time and take the bandsaw marks off - maybe we could have a better gander at the grain? Also note whether said plane encounters Elm - like changes of grain direction...

A place I worked at nearly 20 years ago bought a job lot of reclaimed fence posts in large dimensions and I had lots of things to make from them. Despite earlier comments, I now recall that some of them were elm along with other timbers.

This stuff was absolutely vile to work with: thoroughly impregnated with tar or something, loads of splits, shakes & knots and full of grit and filth. And the shop had no extraction. For machining, I used to wear a respirator (not a mere dust mask); a rubber job with screw on metal filters. Not comfortable in the hot weather, but the dust was hideous and I was afraid of what it probably contained.

 

[JonnyD]

I very much doubt its iroko. I have probably about 10 cubic metres of this timber all in blocks about 250mmx250mmx150mm and it all has the very distictive cats pee smell. I use it for heating the workshop in the winter. I dont know the exact species but i think it comes from australia and could be a jarrah.

cheers

Jon

 

[JonnyD]

It could well be this stuff http://www.auswesttimber.com.au/green-s ... karri.html

cheers

Jon

 

[superunknown]

Looks like Iroko to me Idigbo is a lot lighter in colour and when cut it has a horrible smell, kinda like stale urine.

 

[bosshogg]

thanks for the replies everyone.
ok so i`ve taken another picture, i have scraped back the timber (which it does with relative ease compared to planing), i have also shown the scrapings which seem to be a lot lighter in color compared to the reddish brown of the timber.
another mention on the smell it almost smells like cats pee weird i know but that could be down to it being stored outside for 6 months plus at a agriculture merchants.

all in all though thinking it will make a cracking looking bench.

Looking at the latest posted pics of this wood and the colour of the scraped shavings, my first reaction was I know this wood, I've worked this wood. Then I thought back to your original post where you mentioned when worked it had the smell of cats piss, now bear with me, smells can be elusive and as you pointed out yourself, the storage may have been a contributory factor. When I say smells can be elusive, I refer to how a rose to one person smells of flowery perfume and to another cats piss. Pictorially this could quite easily be a Rosewood, not the classic original (now an endangered species) but instead one of the many other species (so called 'Rosewood') that bear this name . All/most produce a distinctive smell though, of which only one or two could truly be described as rose petal (whence the wood got it's name). You would have to have it examined by a botanical expert to be absolutely sure, let's face it up until now you have been given a number of conflicting 'definite' identifications...bosshogg :|

If you can't imagine it you won't be able to create it A.E. (hammer)