Wood identification???

[Wayland]

I'll admit it.. I'm totally carp at identifying wood and trees by their bark.

Had a look through a couple of books with no luck then realised the fastest way to get a decent answer would be to put it up here.

Riam (Red Fox) gave me this to make a lid for a new Viking box I'm making but I was wondering what kind of wood it is.

Any ideas?

 

[wicca]

My first thought would be Elm, Wayland. If Red Fox knows his wood, then Elm would make sense for box making. There's quite a few species, but looking at the bark and the end grain my guess would be Elm of some kind.

 

[Wayland]

Ha, I thought it might be Elm but the pictures online didn't look quite right.

Maybe I'm better at this than I thought.

Riam wasn't sure what it was either, he rescued it from his dads firewood stack for me.

 

[lou1661]

Have a look at some field maple, Acer campestre, looks similar to that (looking at the picture on my phone anyway)

 

[Mesquite]

Have a look at some field maple, Acer campestre, looks similar to that (looking at the picture on my phone anyway)

I'd go with Lou on it being field maple.

Elm usually has a darker heartwood than the sapwood whereas FM is more a uniform light colour throughout like the log you've got

 

[Wayland]

Hmm.. The bark looks good and the wood itself certainly looks more like Field Maple.

Still a native so that's OK

 

[HillBill]

It's not Elm i don't think, wood is too light as said.. Any chance of a pic of the end grain Gary?

 

[Wayland]

It's packed away in the workshop at the moment.

I'll try and sort something out in the next day or so.

 

[HillBill]

Ok mate....

 

[Red beard]

Hi.Looks like a massive bit of Holly from the picture. The wood is very pale.I made some splitting wedges from a log a while ago.Its best worked green as it can be extremely hard. Would need to see the grain though. If the rings are really tight Holly.

 

[pedrodog66]

If it's not elm then perhaps ash as it's lighter but the box didn't look like it had an open grain or perhaps it's sycamore which has a grain pattern like maple but is lighter in colour....

 

[Nice65]

Field Maple is my guess. Though the bark is similar to Elm, which was my immediate guess, the light wood suggests Maple. Elm at that size is quite rare now, and makes lousy firewood.

I've never seen Holly or Sycamore with bark like that. Holly is smooth and silvery grey, Sycamore similar unless mature and scaly.

 

[Wayland]

The box is oak. It's just the trunk section for the lid I'm puzzeled by.

I'll get some more pictures up today if I can.

 

[Wayland]

OK, End grain.

And along the grain.

 

[HillBill]

Looks like a maple by that Gary.

 

[Wayland]

That is certainly the way I am thinking at the moment.

 

[pedrodog66]

looks a lot like maple in those pictures

 

[awarner]

Interesting for field maple as I know it can change from tree to tree but it's not like field maple I have in my woods.
Certainly not holly, the only elm I'm familiar with is wych elm, images below but, bark can change with the age of a tree, ash is a great example of this.

 

[Wayland]

Made some progress on this box now.

I'll post some new pictures up in a bit.

 

[Wayland]

This is more or less what I wanted the wood for. I've stained the lid to blend it in with the box a bit.

It is going to be carved up a bit before I'm finished, like I did with the Wayland Kista a while back, but I'll start a new thread for that.