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LOML is helping with an estate sale.  One of the items is a "blanket roller" bed said to be built in the 1800's and they want to know what kind of wood was used.

Sorry, no pix.

We were thinking walnut at first look, but it was too red and grain isn't right for Walnut or Cherry.

Found an area where the blanket roller turned in the foot post and could see the raw wood was light colored, but got very dark when dampened.

I also noticed that on the round posts there was a small area of quarter-sawn figure but the pores and grain don't look like Oak.

The only wood that comes to mind is Chestnut -- does anyone know if it shows medulary rays?

Edit to add pix:

Here's the bed:


Here's the interesting grain on turned post:



Here's some of the raw wood (the darker spot is where I wet it yesterday)



Headboard:



grain on turned post:


(Couldn't find any good end grain exposed)

Any ideas???

It's almost impossible to answer without pictures.  Pics of end grain and face grain.  It does look a bit like oak, but no ray flecks that I've ever seen.  It's also quite soft.  Janka of 540 compared to 1360 for White Oak or 1010 for walnut.

Some Chestnut pics to look at


Never forget you live in the land of the Coffee tree A lot of old furniture get's called other wood when this is used.


Then there is that entire Honey Locust thing too


If you are positive about 1880 it could be harder to tell. Blight was near late 1800's in Ky. Info from U KY Edu.

Now with the pics, my vote is sycamore.  Here's an example from some cabinets.

I vote sycamore as well. The ray fleck is quartersawn. Plainsawn is rather plain looking

It looks like very old cherry with a linseed oil finish.  I would also guess that the wood came from on or south of the Mason-Dixon line although southern cherry often has pitch pockets in it.

Sycamore makes sense. I've got some stashed and will compare grain but I think it's a match.

Thanks for the help.

For some reason it looks an awful lot like fir to me. I used to live in a 100+ year old house with all fir trim. ( A really neat house ) The grain and color seem to match. The fir was harder than expected as well. But can't say for sure.

Yes, that is Sycamore, At least it is the only grain pattern I know that has that look. Sycamore look at the pics, you'll see these chains often on QS.

I have some quarter-sawn sycamore that has that stippled grain pattern.