I just wanted to share this gem of a piece of wood that I got my hands on for free. I don’t know what kind of wood it is, and this is not veneer. The shots you are seeing is after I have resawn it and bookmatched it to give a very nice look to it. It was given to me by a friend who owns a cabinet shop because it was given to him. The grain is awesome, almost like silk and it smells really good when you cut it. I’m using it on my girlfriend’s jewelry box for Valentine’s day but I wanted to share it. Any suggestions to what it is or why the grain pattern is so awesome would be helpful. Hope you all enjoy.
Bio
Replies
Bio,
I'd love to help but it would take 4 1/2 days to open your 2 meg pics with dial-up.
Lee
I'm sorry, let me redo them and then I'll repost.
I fixed you up some more bandwidth friendly photos :)
Bio
Bio,
Thanks! Judging from what I can tell in the photos, it may be Alder, which is a popular cabinet wood (hence the reason your friend in the cabinet shop had it). Most alder has a light pinkish tone.
My reasoning for saying alder is the light brown "rays" which occur randomly in the boards, some more than others. From your picture:
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My other choice would be hemlock, which has a similar grain appearance to what your boards show, but I don't recall seeing the brown ray streaks. We have a few hemlock sample doors at work, and to me it looks like pine, with more interesting/prominent cathedral grain. (Sorry, couldn't find a better close up photo)
View Image
In any event it's beautiful, unusual stuff.
Lee
Alder is a good guess and it could also be cherry (which alder resembles). In person I could tell the difference by smell.
Bio,
Reminds me of Birch Bark with those horizontal rays. Perhaps quilted Birch or Aspen although it's a pretty large piece for Aspen. Never seen Aspen much wider than 6".
Boiler
Well that is bookmatched there and I would say the original piece was about 8" wide and about 36" long and was about 5/4 thick. It is a PRETTY piece of lumber and the silky look it gives off in person is amazing.
Bio
Sorry all, I didn't realize my last pictures were so big. These should be much smaller.
Bio
Bio, Nice job on the photos. Let me first start by saying that I am not a wood scientist, but I have been harvesting and making my living working with wood for OMG close to 40 years now.Alder is a pretty good guess, but I think it may be Royal Paulownia. It has been a long time since I have had any, but this is about how I remember it looking. A mostly even texture, with a hint of diffused pores, and a terminal parenchyma line at the end of the growing cycle / annual ring.As for the pattern. This looks typical for what I would expect to find on a root buttress, or under a limb from a tree which would be a bit over 24" diameter, or just the beginning of when the pattern really gets good. When treess grow, they start out as a small sapling with the roots running just under the ground, then abruptly up the small trunk stem, then maybe straight out into a limb. Lets say for simplicity that there are 100 cells per inch, end to end. So for the first foot out into the root, or limb, there will be 1200 cells dividing several times each year. There are also that number up and down the trunk doing the same. As the tree grows, and starts getting up in size, the inside of those corners keep getting more crowded for space as the trunk goes out, and the limbs down, the roots up. Where it stated out with 2400 cells dividing over 24", now the space is getting smaller and smaller. Unless there is something telling some cells to shut down and not divide, the only other option is for them to find other routs to deviate, which is where the wild patterns come in. It is very common to find fiddleback or quilting on the tops or roots or under limbs, or even the inside of sharp grown crooks as the tree gets larger and larger. The larger it gets, the better, or more pronounced the pattern gets in these areas. As a side benefit, when you think of the wind blowing a tree. As the crown sways with the wind, where the roots turn out, is at the fulcrum or area of the highest stress of either compression or tension. These loads are phenomenal. Since the wood is folded, somewhat in accordion fashion now, the wood can stretch more as it elongates, or wrinkle up even more under compression, without breaking or crushing those same cells if they were all aligned straight down and out the roots.
Thanks for all the information. As I said I got lucky and the guy just gave me this, but I would LOVE to have another piece.
Bio
Bio,
Looks like quilted maple to me. It comes from the bigleaf Maple tree
(Acer macrophyllum) in the pacific northwest. See if the pictures in the link below looks like the wood you have. I've built a few things out of it, and it is absolutely beautiful with the right finish!
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=quilted%20maple&um=1ie=UTF-8&sa=Ntab=wi
-kevin
What is the "right finish"?
Bio
Honestly, I don't think it is quilted Maple. While the stuff that you posted is beautiful, it is not the same that I'm dealing with.
Bio
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