i would assume that even from the same manufacturer, these things were batch produced, and changed a little over the years. So you would have to be very lucky to drop on the exact revision that you have.
Wood sample set
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custard
Established Member
I wonder what year it's from? Sarawak and Malaya became Malaysia in 1963 and Siam became Thailand in 1948. Japanese Oak hasn't been a serious commercial timber in the UK since WW2, one of the craftsmen from the Edward Barnsley Workshops wrote in his (unfortunately unpublished) memoirs,
We used a few exotic, foreign timbers before the war - Ebony, mainly for inlay, handles, escutcheons, key plates, etc.
Teak also an oily wood that clogged the teeth of saws, impervious to wood worms and especially the Toredo beetle and so was used extensively in marine work, very durable.
Rosewood - the Indian variety, for its purple beauty, heavy, the dust pungent and sometimes containing streaks of a flint-like deposit disastrous to saws and cutting tools.
Japanese Oak that was cheap, stable, infinitely inferior to the English variety, with a strange fusty smell when cut and used in years past for a great deal of church work as was
Austrian Oak a rather more satisfactory wood than its Japanese counterpart!
Olive, occasionally, for lining cigarette and tobacco boxes - hard and with a pleasant scent and with dense grain.
Box wood for inlay, handles and escutcheon plates, pale, creamy in colour, very hard.
Indian Laurel, heavy, very hard and difficult to work, dark brown and tools had to be kept very sharp.
Above all, English Walnut, the cabinet makers wood. Warm brown, lovely swinging grain, not always stable and sometimes difficult to work but beautiful to look at. Although, not an exotic, foreign timber that I have been describing, it has more attractiveness to me than all the "foreigners"!
For pure glamour Cuba Mahogany is the tops - as I have mentioned when discussing the Fraser Parks bookcase. Very stable, hard to work with a deep, rich red colour. Unfortunately, the Victorians slaughtered the mahogany forests in their enthusiasm for this lovely timber and not having replanted it is now very scarce. I believe it has not been exported from its habitat since the war and so it is a prohibitively expensive wood when small amounts are discovered in the recesses of timber yards!
We used a few exotic, foreign timbers before the war - Ebony, mainly for inlay, handles, escutcheons, key plates, etc.
Teak also an oily wood that clogged the teeth of saws, impervious to wood worms and especially the Toredo beetle and so was used extensively in marine work, very durable.
Rosewood - the Indian variety, for its purple beauty, heavy, the dust pungent and sometimes containing streaks of a flint-like deposit disastrous to saws and cutting tools.
Japanese Oak that was cheap, stable, infinitely inferior to the English variety, with a strange fusty smell when cut and used in years past for a great deal of church work as was
Austrian Oak a rather more satisfactory wood than its Japanese counterpart!
Olive, occasionally, for lining cigarette and tobacco boxes - hard and with a pleasant scent and with dense grain.
Box wood for inlay, handles and escutcheon plates, pale, creamy in colour, very hard.
Indian Laurel, heavy, very hard and difficult to work, dark brown and tools had to be kept very sharp.
Above all, English Walnut, the cabinet makers wood. Warm brown, lovely swinging grain, not always stable and sometimes difficult to work but beautiful to look at. Although, not an exotic, foreign timber that I have been describing, it has more attractiveness to me than all the "foreigners"!
For pure glamour Cuba Mahogany is the tops - as I have mentioned when discussing the Fraser Parks bookcase. Very stable, hard to work with a deep, rich red colour. Unfortunately, the Victorians slaughtered the mahogany forests in their enthusiasm for this lovely timber and not having replanted it is now very scarce. I believe it has not been exported from its habitat since the war and so it is a prohibitively expensive wood when small amounts are discovered in the recesses of timber yards!
I also wonder who it was for- travelling salesman or left with customers. They would never have been cheap to produce ven when the sample species were available. Or would it have been a reference guide for designers?
Phil Pascoe
Established Member
I did read some long while ago that although Honduras and Cuban mahoganies are supposedly different species (macrophylla and mahogo(a)ni), in reality it was impossible genetically to separate them - it was the only the growing conditions that differentiated them.
custard
Established Member
phil.p":1394om9p said:
Adam Bowett's massive tome "Woods In British Furniture Making", written in conjunction with Dr Mark Nesbitt of Kew Gardens, says,
"There are at least 60 different kinds of wood now traded as "mahogany", but there are only three true species, Swietana mahagoni, S. macrophylla, and S. humilis. All three are native to tropical America, but their distribution is geographically distinct...It is important to note that the three Swietenia species cannot reliably be distinguished one from another by microscopic identification, so that retrospective identification of the exact species used in historic furniture is not viable."
This ties in with what I said earlier about Rio Rosewood, in other words pinning down a precise species sometimes cannot be done at the individual sample level, but requires statistical evidence across multiple samples.
Bowett goes on to say,
"Mahogany trees are extremely variable...according to variations in soil and climate"
Amongst the timbers in my workshop I've got some interesting Mahoganies. As part of the Docklands development a forgotten consignment of Cuban Mahogany was discovered, complete with bills of lading and all commercial documentation relating to its importation in 1908, I've got a few boards of these. I've also got some boards of the exact same species when seedlings were taken by the British to India and plantation grown, these are only now filtering into the commercial market. Same species, different growing conditions...to all intents and purposes different wood! If I get time later today I'll take some snaps and post them. I've also got quite a few boards of original Indian Rosewood as well as the same species (Dalbergia latifolia) transplanted and grown in Indonesia and now quite widely imported as Sonokeling Rosewood. The botanists would say same species, but due to the very different growing conditions I think any furniture maker who had experienced the original Indian Rosewood would be pretty disappointed with the current Sonokeling version. Again I'll try and get some time later and take some rubbish iPhone photos!
S1ider
Member
Steve Maskery
Established Member
For many years F&W was my local timber merchant. I do remember them having those sample boxes, but even then, maybe 30 or 35 years ago, there were far more samples than stocked timbers. The sample boxes must have been expensive, because I didn't buy one, but now, of course, I wish I had.
Phil Pascoe
Established Member
Sonokeling - I wonder if it's being cloned? I did read that there were huge plantations of cloned teak that would be quite devoid of character as the donor tree was picked for absolute perfection and commercial viability and the saplings grown in perfect conditions and thus would be likely to have no features of interest.
custard
Established Member
The third one is probably Afrormosia, it's sometimes called African Teak and that stripey, slightly roey grain is fairly distinctive. If you want to see some in the flesh just find an antique dealer selling Danish Modern, if a sideboard is described as "Teak", "Burmese Teak", or "Finest Burmese Teak", but there's no label from one of the three or four really top manufacturers of the period, then it's a banker's bet you're actually looking at Afrormosia!
The first and second ones could be almost anything from a candidate list that's as long as your arm! Identifying timbers from photos is endless fun, but in reality it's just guessing game unfortunately.
The first and second ones could be almost anything from a candidate list that's as long as your arm! Identifying timbers from photos is endless fun, but in reality it's just guessing game unfortunately.
Chrispy
Established Member
My first thought was to establish whether or not it is in alphabetical order, if so it would show one comes before number three which I agree with custard looks very like Afrormosia , and looking in my Titmuss commercial timbers of the world 1971 leaves Abura, Acacia and Afara but before you get carried away Afrormosia is listed under K for it's other name Kokrodua so you see this may just make it even more complicated!
