I stopped by my local hardwoods supplier to look at basswood for stringers and decided to go rummaging through the scrap bin for pieces for fins. I ended up with 12 sticks that were roughly 1/4" thick 1-2" wide and up to 5’ tall. Not too bad for $10. Problem is I have no idea what most of them are. I did a little research online and am fairly certain that I have a piece of purple heart, white or red oak, maple, mahogany, and poplar. The others are completely unknown to me as well as my dad, who fancies himself the weekend woodworker every 6 years or so.
If you need better pictures let me know, they’re all still lying on my living room floor in the exact same position.
The most obvious of them all, purple heart.
From the top. 1: Unknown 2: Unknown 3: White or Red Oak 4: Possibly poplar 5: Seems to be Maple 6: Another possible poplar 7 & 8: Look very similar 9: Mahogany 10: Redwood? 11: Cherry?
And yes, I probably should have just asked while I was there.
As far as I can tell though, none of these are particularly oily and shouldn’t have bad reactions with epoxy.
From the top. 1: Unknown 2: Unknown 3: White or Red Oak 4: Possibly poplar 5: Seems to be Maple 6: Another possible poplar 7 & 8: Look very similar 9: Mahogany 10: Redwood? 11: Cherry?
I had to put the numbers on them because my eyes get a little fuzzy.
If I had to take a wild guess, I’d say 1 is spalted Pecan. 2 is probably one of the popular sustainable-decking woods like Ipe. 3, you’re right - probably red oak. 4 looks a little dense for Poplar, maybe Ash (think baseball bats), but to me 5 looks like Poplar and 6 looks like Maple. 7 & 8 are oaks, for sure. 9 has the brown/gray of Walnut. 10 might be Bubinga, if its really heavy. 11 looks more redwood-like than 10 does.
Just my $02. One thing for sure - except for the Bubinga, all the others are very likely to be found in your area.
number 1 looks like the honduran rosewood I’ve been getting from woodcraft and number 2 looks like kiaat but it’s hard to tell. Been making alot of exotic hardwood bracelets for the ladies for christmas and letter openers for the guys but it’s mostly stuff with fancy color and grain patterns like cocobolo, bubinga, becote, zircote. rosewood, canarywood, marblewood, koa, mango, milo, ohia, lychee don’t see any of that stuff in there…
The oaks, maple and redwood as Ben mentioned look right
don’t know about the bubinga
the ash is probably correct but it could be birch too.
Poplar usually has tinges or green in it you will notice unless it’s heartwood.
I do woodwork a little more frequently that 6 years but I’m still a novice. Too bad we can’t do the scratch and sniff test. That’s very informative with wood, well, plants in general.
Here’s my guess. It’s kind of tough because looks can be deceiving and the type of cut and how close the heartwood can make a big difference.
No. 10 looks pretty resinous to me.
I’m on the West coast and our woods might look different than your.
Padauk turns brown with exposure to sunlight, a friend had a bunch of pieces of it.
Hard to tell from the pic, lots of decent replies so far.
I can say that on mahogany, on one of the type of cut faces the grain will be iridescent… the grain will change as the angle you’re looking at it changes. Can be used to good effect when finished nicely.
My laptop is down right now, but when I get it going again (hopefully soon) I’ll look on it for a pic of a simple little jig that I made for putting together angled cut(sun ray style) fin blanks.
One thing for sure - except for the Bubinga, all the others are very likely to be found in your area.
