Do you have wood in your shop you can't identify?

[FS7]

Glad I'm not the only one.

It's been fun just thinking about what it could be. Why is it next to a zebrawood board? What was I going to do with that? Did I buy that iroko board or not? I don't remember. Why is that one sapele short up there? Is that figured walnut? I forgot about that.

[packerguy®]

Never had mystery wood. 

My main woods are red and white oak, cherry, walnut, maple and pine which I have tons of. The rest I write what it is on the end of the board and have for a decade. A large chuck of my non-primary woods and exotics are in 30" lengths and stored library style. Works awesome for me. 

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[ianab]

Heck I've got about 1,000 bd/ft of wood drying, that I'm not 100% sure what it actually is. IDing ornamental conifers isn't my strong point, but if they are big enough to make a saw log, I'll cut them up. 


I "think" I have a mix of Arizona Cypress, White Cedar, and Nootka Cypress. 

[Bibliophile 13]

I don't have a huge stock of wood, but I know exactly what almost all of it is--and where it came from. Once I work with a wood species, I find it hard to forget, somehow. The look, the texture, the weight, somehow they stick with me for a long time.

The exceptions are a few random pieces I was given or that I salvaged from cast-offs, and those pieces came with little or no information. Really accurate species identification is done by looking through a magnifying lens at planed-down end-grain. Most of us, though, don't have the skill to identify wood that way.

Rough-sawn wood is the most difficult to identify, IME. So step one is planing it down. Saw marks can hide (or even mimic) all kinds of color and figure. Even skip-planing will help you figure out what you're looking at.

[ianab]

Rough-sawn wood is the most difficult to identify, IME.  So step one is planing it down.  Saw marks can hide (or even mimic) all kinds of color and figure.  Even skip-planing will help you figure out what you're looking at.

I agree, and then you throw in some oddball exotic trees to complicate things. 

Locally we have some of almost every tree imaginable growing as ornamentals. All the local species that you will never have heard of, plus assorted Australian / European / Asian / American woods as well. Often I have to get the books out just to ID a standing tree, and even then end up with an educated guess.

[hbmcc]

I picked up some Maricaibo (Spanish) boxwood in a hobby shop maybe, 40 years ago, sold for carving model airplane props. My research indicated it as a substitute for European boxwood for jointed rules, which fit the size I had. The wood is almost a duplicate to an unfinished Rabone I have. For several years references to it were lost to me. Lately, it shows up as an alternate to European box for flutes.  It is incredibly buttery smooth when worked.

[Steve Altman]

http://hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/

+10. There's nothing else even close on the web.

[handi]

I found a board tonight that is totally unsurfaced and I have no idea what it is. I *think* it might be African Mahogany, but I truly don't know. I only say that because the color's approximately correct and I bought some at some point to make some bathroom mirrors. There are others that I am not sure of right now either, but only one of each. 

I know at some point I started labeling the ends of the wood with a Sharpie to help avoid this in the future. Is there a good way to identify species that haven't been surfaced at all without remembering or labeling? Some are easy by smell or appearance, but most aren't.

You need not surface the entire board, a few licks with a block plane should help with identifying the wood. I always bring a small block plane when buying rough cut lumber so I can see what I am getting.

Always get permission first (at a lumber yard, not your stash) but any good yard will have no issue.