Wood ID

Bill Arnold

1974
Staff member
Messages
8,622
Location
Thomasville, GA
I've been milling some different woods for an item I'm carving on my CNC so I'll have a variety for some family and friends. So far, I've milled some mahogany, cherry, maple and ??? The ??? is what I thought was walnut since it was stashed with some other walnut. It was about 1.125" thick, so I re-sawed it to salvage some thin pieces before planing it down to the 5/8" I want. Before re-sawing, one side looked like some of the other walnut I have and one side was a bit lighter. After milling, I got what you see below. These are two pieces about 12" long by 5.5" wide; first photo is one side, second is the other side. They are sequential cross cuts from the board that was about 6' long.

Wood01a.jpgWood01b.jpg

As you can probably see, it has some curl or tiger stripe. These photos are bare wood - nothing applied as yet.

What do I have here?
 
Thanks, guys. All of the maple I've worked with down here has been very light in color; some almost white. Since you guys said maple, I started looking at photos online of various maple varieties and I see a definite correlation to some of them.
 
I read about doing a fingernail test, so I tried that. I can leave an impression with my thumbnail, so I'm going with soft maple now.

Personally, I question the designations of 'hard' or 'soft' as really referring to the hardness of the wood. I have soft maple here I have made tools from. The stuff is nearly as hard as Osage Orange.
 
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