What Is This Wood?

[Guest Lester Weevils]

I've never been good at identifying plants or animals.

 

Started in to rip a medium-size tree that a big white oak knocked down last winter in my little back woods. The bark kinda sorta looked like the bark on the black walnut I just finished ripping, was thinking maybe another black walnut, but after bucking the first section (working from the little end down), it's obviously not walnut. It doesn't have any sample leaves to look up. It is fairly light wood with red hilites on the rings. Some kind of maple? Red oak? Something else?

 

If you click these pictures, they will zoom pretty big for closer examination. I'll probably get around to ripping it tomorrow and get a better idea what it looks like inside.

 

The first end-view, third pic, the brown spots are probably spalting from it laying on the ground, but it is good hard wood. The two black dots on the other end-view, are probably because I cut the top end about a foot under where the tree forked.

 

Thanks for any ideas.

 

 

 

 

[runco]

My guess, Oak

[Greg_Mid_TN]

Looks like white oak to me.

 

G.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Thanks, Runco and Greg_Mid_TN!

[Sidinman]

not sure, but the bark doesn't really look like white oak to me.

[gunwhatgun]

I believe what you have there is an ash tree.

[TerryW]

Nice wood!

[Spots]

[quote name="TerryW" post="1084601" timestamp="1388104490"]Nice wood![/quote] When I saw this I thought I was in one of the gay threads for a minute. I'm thinking white oak also, but thats a guess Tapatalk ate my spelling. Edited December 27, 2013 by Spots

[TerryW]

well, I mean in a forest kind of way..  Technically I haven't seen Lester's wood..   :rofl:

Edited December 27, 2013 by TerryW

[peejman]

I do better identifying by leaves than bark, but it looks like oak to me.

[ttocswob]

Chestnut oak.

[TripleDigitRide]

I'm sure Lumber_Jack will know. At least he should.

[runco]

I googled white oak bark, and this is a good representative picture:

 

[/URL]">http://[URL=http://s963.photobucket.com/user/runco0318/media/whiteoak_zps4537b4c3.jpg.html][/URL]

[runco]

What do they say, smart men will change their minds, fools never will, what about Red Oak?  I googled Red Oak Bark, this looks much more accurate:

 

[/URL]">http://[URL=http://s963.photobucket.com/user/runco0318/media/redoak_zps0a223f4a.jpg.html][/URL]

[East_TN_Patriot]

It looks like ash.  Oak bark tends to be more chunky looking than that one.  Here's a pic from Google of an ash tree.


 

 

If it's not ash, my next guess would be pin oak:

Edited December 27, 2013 by East_TN_Patriot

[runco]

Alright here is Ash:

 

[/URL]">http://[URL=http://s963.photobucket.com/user/runco0318/media/ashbark_zpsc981883f.jpg.html][/URL]

[Guest PapaB]

What do the leaves on the ground near the tree look like? Ash and oak leaves are completely different.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Thanks for the great ideas. The bark does look more like those pictures of ash, red or pin oak. Maybe the ash most, but my eye has never been good identifying natural shapes.

I looked for leaves, but it got knocked down late last winter or early spring, and found nary a leaf. The big oak that knocked down some of its neighbors, when it was bushy, didn't really notice this smaller tree was pretty straight and big enough to rip til the undergrowth died down this fall.

If I get that first piece ripped today, will post pictures of the grain. On the wood database the pictures of ash and oak grain look different enough that maybe it will tell something, though it said both trees have similar looking grain.

[Dirtshooter]

Okay this is a guess, but looks like a hickory to me. Rip me some 1" slabs and I can turn them into loading blocks. Pretty nice lookin wood!! Somehow that sounds wrong. How about the grain and color of that tree looks nice!!

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Here are several pics of the grain, in case it looks familiar to somebody. Doesn't quite look like oak to me, but I'm most familiar with red and white oak grain. Maybe some other oak looks like this for all I know.

 

This top piece of log was maybe 10 inch diameter, but it wasn't as straight as it looked at first, and I only got a couple of about 5" wide X 1 3/4" thick boards out of it.

 

The first 4 shots are of the initial outside cut grain, some brownish from the spalting, and other with the reddish hilites. These pictures are about 6" or 8" wide (vertical dimension in the pics).

 

The second 4 pics are of the two boards, from the cut near the center of the log, They are about 5" by 1 3/4" thick each. They look crooked in the pictures, but that is perspective because I took the pictures pretty close with the Macro setting turned on.

 

Maybe the red coloring is just some kind of fungus or whatever-- Think I read that the red flames in boxelder come from a fungus, so maybe this is the same, or maybe it is part of the nature of the wood, dunno.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[peejman]

I still think its oak.

Yes the red color in box elder or spalted maple is from fungus (rot).

[Clod Stomper]

My first thought was red oak.  Not sure, though.

[Ted S.]

The tree kind?... Sent from somewhere in the cosmos using magic...and bacon.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Thanks for all the good ideas.

 

I really like oak, so if it is oak then that is fine with me. And no matter what it is, I'll figure out something to use it for, so even if it remains unidentified, no problemo.

 

However, the grain in the "mystery wood" appears perhaps "better defined" than the oak grain I'm accustomed to seeing. Maybe after the wood dries and is planed it won't look thataway though. Oak grain often seems "blurred" or "made out of dotted lines", not as "stark" as the "mystery wood".

 

Following are some pictures, I tried to take them all so the vertical dimension is maybe 4 to 6 inches.

 

Here is some finished oak that father-in-law ripped some years ago. First pic is stain + polyurethane, second un-stained finished with polyurethane--

 

 

 

Here is some Home Depot red oak from my kitchen, stained + poly--

 

 

 

A lot of the Home Depot red oak has rather mundane grain. Here are a couple of pics of Home Depot unfinished red oak from my wood rack--

 

 

 

This is some red oak I ripped from a fallen tree in the back yard. This is the tree that wiped out my deck last winter. It has more "character" than the home depot oak, but was ripped from a small diameter section of the monster up near the top of the tree. It is dried and planed but unfinished.

 

 

 

The grain lines on the "mystery tree" may be "more defined" or "bolder drawn" than the oak, or maybe I'm just imagining it. :)

 

 

[gregintenn]

I believe it is white ash. Compare it to a Louisville Slugger baseball bat.