# Wood Identification



## Echofive (Jun 30, 2009)

An old barn on my parents' farm is being torn down. It was made all of hand hewed logs, some probably weighing a ton or better. A lot of the wall joinery was done with large hand carved dowels. I'm hoping someone can tell me what type of wood this is. The general consensus around here is chestnut.


----------



## WDHLT15 (Aug 15, 2011)

Need a close up pic of the end grain after you have shaved a small matchbox size section smooth with a razor blade (but be careful and don't cut yourself!). If it is chestnut, it will be ring porous, the medullary rays will not be visible to the naked eye (unlike chestnut's cousin the oaks), and the pores will be filled with a white crystalline substance called tyloses.

It does not looks so much like chestnut in the pictures because I can see in the first picture which is split radially, the ray fleck easily. You would not be able to do that with chestnut since the rays are not visible to the naked eye. Looks more like maple or cherry from the radial view.


----------



## Straightbowed (Feb 9, 2012)

looks like maple to me but Im not a pro but good luck and make somethin nice with it


----------

