Boxes

Curt Fuller

Member
Messages
348
Location
North Ogden, Utah
L-R Maple, mystery wood, locust, walnut

maplebubingalocustwalnut.jpg


This next pic is a close up of the mystery wood box. I was prowling around the local army surplus store and they had a few old wooden tent posts. One was broke and the wood looked like some kind of exotic type stuff. So I bought one, octagonal 2.75" x 8', for 50 cents. I think it might be bubinga. If it's WWII surplus then it's 60+ years old and turning it was like turning concrete. But it is kind of pretty wood. Any other guesses what it might be?

bubingatentpole.jpg
 
Curt, very nice stuff. Oh well, the locust is my favorite, I like light colored wood the most
 
...This next pic is a close up of the mystery wood box. I was prowling around the local army surplus store and they had a few old wooden tent posts. One was broke and the wood looked like some kind of exotic type stuff. So I bought one, octagonal 2.75" x 8', for 50 cents. I think it might be bubinga. If it's WWII surplus then it's 60+ years old and turning it was like turning concrete. But it is kind of pretty wood. Any other guesses what it might be?
bubingatentpole.jpg
If it's WWII military, and it doesn't look like a common domestic species it could very well be a tropical hardwood. During the war the military went into the jungles of Mexico, Central and South America looking for wood that could replace the teak that was at the time difficult to obtain. They needed teak for their aircraft carrier decks and they wanted a wood supply for it closer to home for strategic and logistical reasons. Lots of timber was tested at the time, and even if it didn't pass as a carrier deck wood, some was apparently used for other wooden objects the military made at the time. Your tent pole could very well be a part of that. Gee... if only it could talk, what a story it might have to tell, no?
 
Dave, teak was one of the possibilities I had in mind. I haven't ever turned teak before but from pics in my wood ID book this could be teak. It's hard to say how the color of the wood would change over 50+ years though.
 
Dave, teak was one of the possibilities I had in mind. I haven't ever turned teak before but from pics in my wood ID book this could be teak. It's hard to say how the color of the wood would change over 50+ years though.
Except for the exposed surface, the color of the wood shouldn't change unless it was subjected to some unknown chemical, like when ammonia from urine changes the color of oak that came from a stable. Most of the teak I have seen is more of a lighter brownish/tan color, sometimes even a little greenish tinge to it, and not as dark as that, but then I have not seen a whole lot of teak.

btw, I've read that teak tends to dull tools faster than other wood.
 
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