Sycamore or horse chestnut wood?

[tombear]

Hi folks
I've acquired about a Mondeo boot full of mixed horse chestnut and sycamore wood from a tree surgeon. Now the horse chestnut can be just about used for turning but the sycamore i can do a lot with. However the bark looks pretty much all the same, especially as its all covered in green crud.

The question is, is there a fool proof way of telling the difference between the two? Emphasis on the words fool proof.

Cheers!

Tom

 

[bobnewboy]

Older or younger wood? That is, large section across the piece or smaller than say 6 inches? Older, mature horse chestnut has much rougher bark than sycamore if memory serves me. Debarked wood will be much more difficult to tell apart, except that sycamore tends to have a less noticeable growth ring pattern. Perhaps post a few pics?

Cheers, Bob

 

[tombear]

Cheers! its a mix of biggish logs and sub six inch sections of branch,

I'll do some pics when I get back as I'm about to change into shorts and head out into this glorious weather!

ATB

Tom

 

[ejtrent]

Hey bud,

It can be a little difficult to tell pale woods apart, especially when they are wet and in smaller sections,

Horse chestnut isnt an ideal timber to work with but im sure itl work, youll see a lot more use out of the sycamore

Be careful with staining as they dry and if you intend to use it as timber saw it up as quick as you can - you can split it off into smaller slabs if you dont have access to a bandsaw or dont fancy ripping by hand.

Seal ends with any kind of paint but latex is ideal as it controls the drying a little better.

Sycamore youll notice a lot of the time you get lace figure, as seen here:

 

[Leshy]

Sycamore doesn't splinter apparently.

Hence why in the olden days, it was used for baby toys , bobbins, rattles and the likes

I'm pretty sure horse chestnut does .

Hope it helps

 

[Robson Valley]

I know those two. Without a microscope, I won't even try.
Wood anatomy is like fingerprints = you cannot go wrong.
Old microscope @ 100X, some wood stain, straight razor to cut 10 to 20 micron slices of end grain
and a couple of glass microscope slides = absolute definitive identification.

Tom, you must have all of that kit and more to hand, yes?

 

[tombear]

Well, I left it too late to take pics in natural light yesterday and I woke to heavy rain so until it clears up or I man up and drag some inside this is the best pic Ill have taken hanging out of a back window...

The bigger bits the lads stacked neatly for me but then they lost interest and chucked the rest into a rough pile with a few stray bits of wood that were laying about. I'm hoping there's enough sycamore to froe some blanks for turning and big spoons/ladles.

Thanks for all your suggestions. Unfortunately I've killed the relatively new and still shiny bandsaw by stripping a thread adjusting a bit that your not meant to adjust yourself on the lower wheel. oops. All I need to do is get a small bolt 1/2 a mill wider (or a imperial size just bigger than the original) and re tap the hole to fit but its in a fiddly place and i keep putting it off. So I'll be ripping the stuff apart or splitting it either with the froe or wedges, once I know whats worth keeping and whats firewood. I had a lot of paraffin wax dumped on me so I've been using that to seal the ends of stuff. I've got it in a old double boiler and in theory if I scrape it off before using the wood I can chuck it back in and reuse it. Nowts tried to eat it so far.

I'm hoping to use some of it while its still green, what I was really hoping for was a big slab to make a kneading trough from but I only got to the guy after He had chopped it up into convenient to carry to the chipper pieces.

I'd love it if some of it has that lace figure, the sycamore i've had that's not been spelted has been rather bland. Great to work mind, just not pretty

Yeah, all the horse chestnut 'Ive come across before has been very splitty, the only thing apart from burning I've seen it used for is spit into palings for fences.

Yeah, there's at least two microscopes in the house not including the brass affair herself inherited and plenty of unused slides, just finding them will be fun! Im glad its not just me that has difficulty telling the two apart!

More when I have pics that are some use.

ATB

Tom

 

[Nice65]

It’s Sweet Chestnut that’s used for splitting for fencing. It’s high tannin content means it lasts well.

 

[tombear]

I stand corrected, ta! You don't get much sweet chestnut up here, sadly. Evidentally they aint even closely related, and much to my surprise HC isnt even native, it was brought over from Turkey in Stuart times!

https://www.woodworkingnetwork.com/...oducts-magazine/horse_chestnut_127688598.html

It would seam Horse Chestnut is soft and non durable,the only use I have found for it is handles and brushbacks, if i ever make a brush!.

ATB

Tom

 

[bobnewboy]

Hmmm, well I’d say that the paler green barked pieces are more likely to be the sycamore, but that’s about as far as I’d like to go looking at those pieces I’m afraid

Cheers, Bob

 

[Robson Valley]

Without being entirely invasive (cutting into every log) , the short answer is no, there's no foolproof ID from the gross anatomy of the wood.
Even the end grain, at 10X and very cleanly shave-cut, doesn't look sufficiently different.

First, you need reference slides of stained radial, transverse and tangential sections. Either species will do.
Shaved off end grain and stained, the comparisons under a microscope @ 100X will be straight forward.
I'd look first at the rays in tangential sections shaved off the surface of the log.