IanB
Established Member
Hi, I'm just wondering if anyone can identify this wood - could it perhaps be holly?
Wood id ?
- Thread starter IanB
- Start date
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Beech
Phil Pascoe
Established Member
How newly cut is it? Beech tends to turn a light yellow/orange colour. If it's been cut for a week or two and it's still white it could well be holly. Holly will probably be heavier as well.
Get the endgrain painted with something, regardless.
Get the endgrain painted with something, regardless.
Woody2Shoes
Impressive Member
Could be beech or maybe holly or possibly sycamore. If you scratch the bark and sniff you may get a clue - holly has a sort of 'crunchy salad vegetable' kind of smell, beech has a more nutty kind of smell and sycamore doesn't smell of much. The smell of holly is distinctive and almost good enough to eat! 
Woody2Shoes
Impressive Member
The more I look at the pic the more I think sycamore - the growth rings suggest it grew pretty fast, strong circumstantial evidence for sycamore imho
IanB
Established Member
Thanks all.
It's definitely not beech though. The cut surfaces in the pic are freshly sawn, but it seems to retain the pale colour. The bark looks quite distinctive, but it's a few shades darker than the growing holly trees I've been looking at.
I'll do the sniff test! Does this still work if it's not freshly felled? - I think this was felled around the beginning of this year.
It's definitely not beech though. The cut surfaces in the pic are freshly sawn, but it seems to retain the pale colour. The bark looks quite distinctive, but it's a few shades darker than the growing holly trees I've been looking at.
I'll do the sniff test! Does this still work if it's not freshly felled? - I think this was felled around the beginning of this year.
What makes you say that it's definitely not beech?
The nodules on the bark look very beechy.
I'm not entirely sure the bark is silvery enough for Holly and it doesn't look to me like sycamore at all.
The nodules on the bark look very beechy.
I'm not entirely sure the bark is silvery enough for Holly and it doesn't look to me like sycamore at all.
IanB
Established Member
In case it's of interest, I've now positively identified this as sweet bay (laurus nobilis), thanks to a knowledgeable passing tree surgeon and subsequent cross checking against a bay in a nearby garden, which has identical bark.
Does anyone have experience of working with (in particular turning) bay?
Does anyone have experience of working with (in particular turning) bay?
Not sure but the piece on the right appears to be WiFi enabled.
dannyr
Established Member
always collecting different logs -- my old bit of sweet bay (big branch not trunk) has gone brown and lost a lot of weight - not nearly as dense as it was
Hedjmunky
Member
Not tried it myself , cut some for firewood , being fast grown it is prone to splits , fungal staining and twist , shrinks a lot on drying, would rough turn it and then wait and see.
Phil Pascoe
Established Member
Seeing the price of little jars of bay leaves, the tree probably had about £50,000s worth of leaves on it when it was felled.
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