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Need help in IDing this wood

3K views 27 replies 18 participants last post by  SteviePete 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
I'm very new to this forum and find it to be really informative and like it a lot. I'm also fairly new to woodworking at this level, being newly retired I have recently jumped in with both feet. I just bought a large lot of wood that had been in a barn loft for over 30 years. It was dirty and unrecognizable but was id'd by the seller as Cherry. After cleaning a piece and planing it down I am not sure what it is. Overall color looks a bit like cherry, but grain is a bit more pronounced than cherry and has flicks - really a lot nicer looking piece of wood than photo shows. I've got about 500 bf and need to know what it is before I can figure what to do with it.

Wood Material property Wood stain Hardwood Pattern


Wood Material property Wood stain Hardwood Pattern


Wood Jaw Fawn Hardwood Wood stain


Table Wood Rectangle Hardwood Flooring
 

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#3 · (Edited by Moderator)
If it was Cherry , you would really notice its unique aroma when freshly milled. With the Spalting and the chatoyance in the photos , I'd go with a Maple….possibly Red Maple. Any way to get a picture in natural light….no flash ?
Also found this referred to as "Sycamore Maple"...don't know what you have for trees in your neck of the woods : )

Here's a link to HobbitHouse for Red Maple , if you're interested : )
http://www.hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/maple,%20red.htm
 
#5 ·
Welcome to LJ, Bud.

That looks to me like it could well be cherry, but hard to tell from photos of one sample - it could just as well be maple or birch or any number of smooth grain, lighter color woods. Like dusty says, you would really notice the smell if it is cherry. Whatever the case, you're sure to have fun building something with it.
 
#6 ·
The confusion lies in that the wood was described as Cherry when sold - but it is has been in a barn loft for over 30 years - no discernible smell. I went on a site that id's wood and came to the idea that it could be red maple but the examples on that site did not match that closely - but I am pretty sure that it is not cherry. I've had one woodworker suggest that it could be beech but I have reservations about that as well. I probably need to cut and plane another piece to make sure that I didn't just pick an anomaly as an example. This wood is really pretty and I want to make sure I chose the optimum use for it. I thank all of you for your comments and look forward to a long relationship on this wonderful site
 
#10 ·
I've sawed a lot of both cherry and maple. I've seen cherry that was as light as maple when freshly cut and some maple that was as dark as cherry. Especially red maple. I've also seen those quartersawn flecks in both maple and cherry. The easy way to tell which you have is to sand a small piece and put some tung oil on it, then put it in the sun. The maple will darken slightly when you rub in the oil, so will the cherry, but in a short time the cherry will darken a lot.
 
#12 ·
I'd bet steaks to cheeseburgers that it's cherry. The color could be either cherry or maple, but cherry has a unique kind of flame that is quite different than the figure that shows up in maple. The ripples in these photos are the kind you see in cherry.

with that said, the tape test that Sawdust4Blood mentions will tell you for sure. Make sure to put the tape in one of the reddish areas, which will darken considerably more/faster than the whiter areas. I would give it a full afternoon to be certain.
 
#14 ·
That looks identical to something milled up recently-I wasn't able to figure out what species, but it was a cherry or berry tree of some sort. I'll see if I can dig up a picture. Also, I don't know that that is spalting.. Looks like a gum pocket. Where's WDHLT15 when you need him?
 
#15 ·
I did the tape and sunlight test for the better part of the day with almost no change in color. Makes me think that I have a red maple or something similar. Question: does the fact that this wood had been sawn and sat in a barn loft for over 30 years have any effect on the darkening possibilities when exposed to sunlight? This wood is very dry and maybe the elements in the wood that cause it to change color have evaporated or dissipated somehow?
 
#16 · (Edited by Moderator)
Hi Welcome. I am thinking Maple… some maple can be darker, some cherry can be lighter, but I love cherry and have been using it for a decade now. I guarantee Cherry only gets darker with age, oxidization and uv exposure, so after 30 years.. it would still get darker. I really doubt that it is cherry, but the boards, with the little bit of spalting and those inclusions look exactly like a maple to me… I use a lot of found wood and then dry it myself, so I find all kinds of maple figuring and grain and have come to realize which are unique to Maple.
 
#20 · (Edited by Moderator)
Wood Trunk Plant Terrestrial plant Tree


Bark inclusions and some spalting(above) in center as well as spalting to the right side of photo.
Your tape trick proved it isn't Cherry. Cherry gets darker and richer looking when exposed to sunlight : )
What color was it before milling , brick-ish red or more like gray or silver ?
If it was Cherry , it would have been very dark after cooking for 30 years in the barn.
And once again , you would have smelled the wonderful Cherry aroma after milling it : )
 

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#21 ·
before I milled the face of the board it was a very dirty grey color - I milled a piece of another board and it is almost definitely maple and I am assuming it was from the same tree, but until I mill some more of the wood I won't know if all of the wood is from the same tree or if I have a mixed lot of wood. I've already found one piece of pine in the lot - but it's all perfect because I'm just loving the experience. Now I'm working on picking the "right" projects to build with this wood

thanks much to all for your comments
 
#25 · (Edited by Moderator)
The pith flecks (little streaks) and the lack of contrast between the heartwood and the sapwood lead me to maple, probably red maple. One way to tell is to look at the end grain sliced clean with a razor blade. Cherry has one row of larger pores at the beginning of the growth ring, then the subsequent pores are all small. In maple, they are all the same size throughout the ring with no single row of earlywood pores. You have to have a very clean slice to see the single row of larger pores in cherry. That is why cherry is a little "grainier than maple.

(Superstretch….....I went surf fishing for a week at Cape Hatteras.)
 
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