Greetings All,
Longtime lurker but new member would very much appreciate assistance in identifying wood species.
I have several planks (50 x 200 x 4000 mm = 2″ x 8″ x 13′) planks of a very dense and very hard wood I cannot identify. In the attached pictures is a freshly resawn piece which has been treated with mineral oil to enhance the grain pattern for the pictures. Sanded end grain action shots included.
The wood has weathered to grey outside, but planks I’ve installed on my stairs have darkened (considerably) to brown.
It sinks in water. Paper thin scraps sink easily after a poke, thick chunks sink like the Titanic. The specific gravity is in the neighborhood of 1.2 I believe. Non carbide tools (table & bandsaw blades, as well as drills) complain grotesquely, improperly predrilled screws snap like twigs, and sandpaper wears like crazy when working with this stuff. I will open a propeller business with the pieces I failed to adequately secure while drying.
Many thanks in advance for your help! Take care and be safe.
Replies
I'm going to guess padouck.
Padauk has a specific gravity of about .75. It will float not sink
It is not a witch. Noted!
This is why I check the comments!
I'll go with Ipe.
I second padouk, looks way too red for ipe to me.
Ipe
The color, grain, and lousy workability reminds me of blood wood/satine... Similar to Padauk, but redder in color. Used some in some cutting boards and it wanted to burn going through drum sander!
(Never seen red Ipe - installed quite a few hundred lineal feet of that on our deck...)
“[Deleted]”
Greetings,
Thank you all for your input. Does satine/bloodwood weather to grey? I cannot seem to find any info on that. The pieces I have outside are grey.
Thanks!
I think the best answer you may get to that is "probably" - doubt too many people are building outdoor projects with bloodwood or knowingly leave it to weather. But from what I have seen, many species of woods natural weathering is to end up with a dull grey look to it - certainly the Ipe on our deck as mentioned above does that as I expected it would.
When ipe first began to show up it was marketed under different names. The first time I bought it it was called paulope. Poue is another word I've heard used. Later I went to the same place,got the same wood and it was called ipe.
When I asked ,how come, they explained that the names describe the region that the wood originates from. I know they do that in South America with certain trees or they could have been making it up. Now it seems " ipe" is the accepted term we use covering all of it. It includes a whole bunch of trees from the hydroanthus family and grows all over Central and South America. Like any wood ,climate,altitude,soil conditions will effect grain patterns and coloring. I used a bunch of it for outdoor projects ,it comes pretty green,as in unseasoned. I stored away some of the better boards I had and after about 8 years - really, about 8 years later, I deemed it suitable for furniture grade projects. It's superhard, maybe one of the hardest woods there is. You would have to find something like quebracho to find something harder. I know a guy that invented and marketed a special tapered bit and countersink specifically for ipe decking. I've seen it for sale at lumberyards owned some and it smoked those bits as well. That stuff and stainless screws is a challenge! It also has this nice ring to it if you tap it, like you could make zylaphones out of it. The coloring of stuff I have had went from almost yellow through various stages of brown to quite red. I built all my windows in my house and the sash and frames are redwood. I used single pane glass so I will at times get condensation that drips and stains the bottom sash and sills. I had some nice red ipe and replaced the sills in my living room with it. It appears very similar to the redwood windows. It's browned out some now but on the next round of refinishing I'll bet the red is still in there. I have planter boxes made out it that are that color of gray. Everything that the poster describes is just like ipe and he refers to it as brown besides in his post.
Looks like Jatoba (Brazilian Cherry) to me. Your description matches my experience with it.
Could be jatoba but it also closely resembles massaranduba (aka beefwood, Brazilian redwood). It's another of those really hard, dense, and weather-resistant South American lumbers that's been fashionable for decking. It was quite cheap for a while. It has a little more dull appearance than jatoba and is super heavy.
Thank you all for the advice!
If you're in the US, you could try the wood identification public service from the folks as the USDA Forest Products Laboratory. It's free, and they will identify up to 3 specimens per household per year. Here's a link for more information:
https://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/research/centers/woodanatomy/wood_idfactsheet.php
That is awesome! Thanks for sharing.
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled