Shopsmith Forums

Can anyone identify this wood? I received this in a "grab bag" box of cutoffs from Rockler awhile back. The pictures don't really do it justice. It has different shades of green and brown. The grain is pretty straight and very tight. The wood is extremely dense and heavy. The finished sides feel almost like stone to me when I run man hand across it. I looked it up on wood-database.com which is the only site that came up in a search for "exotic lumber identification". As near as I can tell it is green heart - by the picture on the site and the description. The squares in the vinyl floor are about 8 inches for size reference.

I edited this post and removed the photos. They may be found at this link...

https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/112375433143197457683/albums/5964400221813266913

Other species that were in the box were curly maple (two very small, almost useless pieces), walnut, bubinga, blood wood, purpleheart and one very tiny piece of zebra wood (I think).

Thanks for the help!

Looks a lot like Black Walnut.

JPG40504 wrote:Looks a lot like Black Walnut.

I wood say it looks like Popular.

beeg wrote:I wood say it looks like Popular.

Both have light sapwood.

May be a mix of both? No not a hybrid tree!!!:D

Are there short black 'voids' on the surface?

Let's get a close-up view of the end grain! Colors can be deceiving. Might be one of the non-native species. Can you see the annual rings? Is it diffuse porous? Is it ring porous?

Ask Rockler if they know what the possibilities are..

The pictures don't much resemble "lignum vitae," but the verbal description might. In older times that wood wasn't so greenish-tinted like recent supplies seem to be....

Otherwise, I understand there are many, many variants in the rosewood family of species. It could be one of them. Most all of those tend to be aromatic, even allergens to the unlucky, when cut.

nuhobby wrote:The pictures don't much resemble "lignum vitae," but the verbal description might. In older times that wood wasn't so greenish-tinted like recent supplies seem to be....

Otherwise, I understand there are many, many variants in the rosewood family of species. It could be one of them. Most all of those tend to be aromatic, even allergens to the unlucky, when cut.

Walnut has a distinct 'aroma'. Do not know how to post that!:D

Ok, the original photos were taken out by me. I broke out the "Big Gun", my Canon EOS Rebel and took some macro shots of the end grain and added those to the original 5 pics I had posted; the original shots were taken with my phone (Galaxy S3).

I really can't believe how dense and heavy this wood is. ("That's what she said!" ) I thought poplar at first sight, but it is definitely not poplar when you pick it up.

FYI,

Here is some lignum vitae which looks slightly like one of your photos, and it is mightily dense wood:
[ATTACH]23631[/ATTACH]

Looks a bit like bocote to me. Very dense, but fun to work.