Wood ID help needed

[paarker]

I have a very good friend who passed away several years ago. He lived on his farm most of his life. He never was one to spend money on anything that wasn't needed, so he didn't do much work to the place. His wife took a few years after his death to figure out what she wanted to do. She decided to stay on the farm since the memories were to great to leave behind. She had to have part of the barn demolished and the rest needed major work. After the work was complete there was a few beams laying around. I asked her son if I could have the beams to build her a table for her kitchen. I honestly thought all the beams were pine until I got to the last pile. I am not sure what this beam is but it weighs a lot more the similar sized pine beams.

[CLETUS]

I'm not an expert, but it looks like oak to me.

[shoottmx]

Looks a lot like the chestnut I have in the shop. There's just a few small chunks left from the pig barn that was torn down on the family farm in the 60's.

g

[Gary G™]

Looks like oak—white oak—to me.

[John Mihich]

chestnut, ash, and oak are real similar. I know what ash and oak smell like when cut.  That's the way I would tell the difference in this.  This has dried badly - lots of cracks - so by just looking it's tough.

[jteneyck]

My first thought was white oak, too.

John

[Bill Holt]

My first thought was chestnut.  I was actually looking at some chestnut this morning.

White oak is another good guess.  The two smell vastly different, at least to me.  So I recommend the smell test.

[paarker]

Thanks for the replays. I never worked with chestnut or white oak before so the smell part won't help me. If white oak smells anything like red oak then I can tell for sure. I'll get some more pictures over the weekend after I had the chance to plane it down and get better pictures.

[badwhiskey]

Another vote for chestnut.

[jteneyck]

Thanks for the replays. I never worked with chestnut or white oak before so the smell part won't help me. If white oak smells anything like red oak then I can tell for sure. I'll get some more pictures over the weekend after I had the chance to plane it down and get better pictures.

White oak has a distinctly different smell than red oak.  White oak smells like wine barrels, because that's what's used to make them.  Also, you can't blow air through end grain WO, as you can with red oak and I'm guessing chestnut, too. So if you take a piece of the wood, say 1/2" square and a couple of inches long and try blowing through it like a straw, you can't make bubbles if the other end is in a glass of water.  With red oak, and probably chestnut, you can.  

John