I got a call from a fellow who asked if i would run a piece of wood through my planer for him for a plaque commemorating his brother’s antelope murder. I picked up his piece of wood that i figured was soaking since it was so heavy, but it hasn’t lost any weight in a week of sitting by the wood stove, nor did it warp or crack. It’s extremely pitchy, impossible to sand for loading the belt, with the scent of menthol. I’m instead giving the guy a lovely piece of aspen in the same wood tones to match his dead ungulate, so that’s taken care of, but i’m still curious. It doesn’t match any softwoods in my memory banks, though the knots are reminiscent of larch found in these parts. I’ve just never seen it so heavy with pitch. (I googled on “pitch pine”, but it doesn’t match.)
Oh, there was a note with marker on the side of the board, “2.25 BF”, but i don’t know if that was the price or the size. The fellow bought it from a local lumber retailer i steer folks away from. The pic shows both flat grain and the tight end grain. The dark mark on the end grain is not a burn, but pitch. It doesn’t exude, just sits there waxy-like.
OK, knotheads, have at it!
Replies
Hard to tell from a photo and I am certainly not an expert but could it be mesquite (sp?). I recently tried to cut some mesquite on my bandsaw about 4" thick, it was plenty hard and heavy. Just a thought
God Bless
les
Not mesquite. I have a block that a wonderful old guy in Texas who saw me at an art fair sent to me--it's dense and waxy like my sample, but the menthol smell of this mystery wood is extraordinary, while mesquite has no particularly strong odor.
Edited 1/15/2003 12:36:34 AM ET by SPLINTIE
Old growth Doug Fir?
sawick
Isn't there a forestry program at UofM in Missoula? Surely somebody in that department identifies woods.
i figured [the wood] was soaking since it was so heavy
Sounds suspiciously like a hard wood to me.
Flicking through what little wood ID info I have here, a few options show their noses. Could it be:
lignum vitae sapwood. described as very hard and heavy with fine uniform texture. Resinous with an oily feel. Very difficult to saw and plane. Heatwood is dark greenish brown to black. Sapwood is cream coloured.
teak uneven texture with an oily feel. Burma teak is uniform golden brown, others darker and more marked
these are only ones that sort of match your description.
Others like cedrus libani (Lebanon Cedar) whilst they may be aromatic are noted to sand easily.
EDITed to try and correct spelling and grammer
Edited 1/15/2003 7:32:28 AM ET by ian
I know a bit about tropical hardwoods ( have a nice collection) but I think you're a bit of track on the lignum vitae & teak. Both have much finer grain.
I'm guessing it to be a fir, the smell has me stumped however.
Old growth Heart Pine. Look how tight those growth rings are. When I plane some of the stuff I have it smells like Turpintine.
I agree, I have a nice little supply Of it. Smells just like turpentine. Also that knot with that pitch pocket is characteristic of what i have...Petey
I agree with you. My Dad and I tore down an old house in the late '60's that was full of heart pine . A lot of it rough cut.
I agree with you on the Heart Pine. It looks really gummy to me.
It's old-growth whatever it is, and it looks a lot like cypress. But from your description I'd bet money that it's one of the southern yellow pines.
Splintie, lets attack this rationally. The first thing you should do is comfirm whether it's a hardwood or a softwood. Check the end grain with a hand lens (10X or higher) to see if it has a complex, angiosperm structure, i.e., displays an abundant amount of vessel pores...or just some occasional resin canals, like you would find in a typical, resinous softwood.
I guess, from the photo, I'm not convinced for sure that it's a softwood. It could be any of many exotics, given that knock-down menthol scent you describe. It might even be one of the eucalypts.
Splintie,
Jon beat me to it. The photos and description of the odor are very reminiscent of some eucalyptus I've seen and handled.
That wood is obviously from the gnotis gnownus, v. gnastii, which explains its odor. (Jon is wrongus.) Glad I could help.
James, the genus is ALWAYS capitalized...But otherwise, what you say might be true.
Of course. That's why they capitalize my name, as in: The Mad Genus Gnows His Stuff (he said modestly).
Gidday mate!
Looks like pitch pine to me, but I gotta say my only experience with said timber is based on some very old stuff recovered from a chappel in Wales about 15 years ago - I made a small cabinet from the timber I took as part-payment for some work and won a national prize with it and have been fond of southern pitch pine ever since.
Couple of obervations: The growth lines are very close - this tree grew very slowly! Hence the density. Some pines are inclined to be occasionally highly resinous (the wood experts will give you chapter and verse on this) and you seem to have one such.
Probably an unusual piece of wood, rather than an unusual species?
I'm no ID wiz, but I'll throw it out. Comparing your picture & description to what I have for references, the closest I come in appearance and qualities is Keruing, or Dipterocarpus Dipterocarpaceae. Evergreen hardwood native to SE Asia, grain straight to shallowly interlocked, "with a moderately coarse but even texture. Resin exudation a problem." Weight approx 50lb/ft3 seasoned, which for comparison - black walnut is around 40, as is pitch pine, lignum vitae is 77 in this book. Says it's used in wharf decking, bridges, and exterior uses where the resin is not as much of an issue. The picture is very close. Who knows.
" Exult O shores, and ring O bells! / But I with mournful tread, / Walk the deck my Captain lies, / Fallen cold and dead" - Whitman
RW, you're right about keruing being about as gummy as they come, but being an evergreen, tropical species, it doesn't typically display the pronounced annual rings so evident in the photo Splintie posted.
I've been googling on all the ideas you guys have thrown out. Without being a wood gen[i]us, it says "pine" to me. Although i know the commercial species (7 seasons of stand exam with USFS) from MT to CA, i couldn't place this one--def. not Doug fir. I've never spent much time in the Souteastern US, but "heartpine" pix i've been looking at hit it pretty close, esp in evenness of color. Some of the sites lump the HP with SYP, though where they are broken out as seperate species, SYP has more sapwood/heartwood contrast. The sites mentioned the density and resinosity (?) of the HP in particular. But i'm stumpterfied how anyone could ever sand it in a floor, since that seems to be its main use. I loaded up a new 80-grit belt in a few seconds...
I can't abide talking to the shyster dealer who sold this to the guy, but UM For. Dept. or more likely my XDH logging engineer could sort this out. I returned most of the wood to its owner this morning, but traded him the aspen for this chunk.
Splintie,
I knew you would have picked a common species if it was in front of you and I was waiting for you to answer Jon Arno's question re: hardwood or softwood. As you think that it's non-commercial US pine, how about old growth Radiata pine/Monterey Pine as an alternative to heartpine? Radiata is commercialised outside the US - pitch is very strong smelling, albeit more pine than Menthol. Normally we see it as plantation grown, but that gum pocket looks vaguely familiar.
eddie
Edited 1/15/2003 11:22:06 PM ET by eddie (aust)
As i understand it, radiata is a fast grower, used for pulping and framing. I counted the rings in this sample at ~34/in.! I have my doubts it would pay to ship pine to the interior US from Aust., if that's what you're thinking...? And as far as i know, the California Monterey pines aren't commercial, but i could be wrong about that--just never say it for sale when i lived there.
As for the gum pocket--the dark spot on the endgrain isn't a pocket of pure pitch, but regular wood rings seemingly saturated with pitch.
Colleen,
At 34/in rings are too close for slow grown radiata. It's plantation grown in a few countries - sent to West Coast of US from New Zealand.
Good luck in finding out what it is!
Cheers,
eddie
34 rings/in sounds like old growth. But from where if it the tree grew in the US or Canada and it's not a Pacific NW species? Got to a lumber yard near you so must have some commercial value.
Have you determined if it's a hard or softwood?
Is your preference to steer clear of this yard based on factors such as their business practices, where they source their logs, ie "greenie" factors ?
With little else to go on I'd guess at a SE Asian or Western Pacific native that was probably recovered by an unsustainable logging operation.
I've only a 3X lens, but with Jon's description, i looked at the end grain on several species of hardwoods and softwoods that i know. If i'm seeing what he described, the pores are random, relatively widely-spaced, and few in number compared to the hardwoods i observed (wenge, bubinga, goncalo, padauk, koa for tropical; oak, maple, walnut, cherry, and ash for temperate), although i couldn't see much in the hard maple at all at that magnification. I also looked at the endgrain of lodgepole and ponderosa pine, and doug fir, and it appears more similar to those than to the hardwoods.
The dealer: my pref to steer clear is based on the Shyster Quotient. I ordered a 500' bunk of oak, waited three weeks to get it, which he sold to someone else between the time he called me to come pick it up and my driving the truck down to the warehouse the same day. Several friends went in on a large order of oak, but all the VG edges had been ripped off by the time he called them (he has a milling operation), leaving only narrow, flat-sawn boards. The very last time i did business with him, i was charged $23 to re-stock one rosewood board i decided was too narrow ($230 board, or i would have kept it), on a $1000+ sale--from stock, not special-ordered. This fellow with the antelope head said the dealer acted odd, wouldn't quote a price until he found out what the wood would be used for, what the customer did for a living, etc.
He deals in quite a bit of salvage, including doors, windows, etc., so i suppose that fits with the old-growth, heartpine motif for flooring. This board was 10" wide, and that without the pith or any sapwood showing, and seems very stable. I stood it on top of the woodstove last night after the fire died and pitch just oozed out of it, but only teeny cracks appeared on the end it stood on. Nice aroma, too!
Thanks, a much longer reply than I expected. Reading how you were suprised by the weight, my immediate reaction was "piece of hardwood" I've had a bit of practice lately moving similar sized pieces of softwood and hardwood - the hardwood definitely takes both hands while the softwood only takes one.
Appart from the problems with sanding it, have you tried how hard/easy the stuff is to saw or plane?
Ian
Splintie, it sounds like you've confirmed that it's a softwood (but you really ought to get a 10X lens, or something even stronger.) Also, don't let the weight of the wood fool you into thinking it is too heavy to be a softwood. Heart pine (Pinus palustris) has an average specific gravity of about 0.55, so it's almost as dense as sugar maple (0.56.) If you're curious enough to send me a sample, I'd be happy to take a look at it and tell you what I think it is.
My deepest thanks for the offer, Jon; very kind of you. I'm satisfied it's heart pine at this point after holding up the board to the monitor with jdg's picture of the door head rail--they look to have been cut from the same log! I have yet another mystery wood of which i was given a couple hundred pounds in 4x4 posts 12' long, a tropical...another thread, when i get the samples scanned.
(I not only need a better lens, i could use a book, too. My Industrial Arts and Tech degree was a lot heavier to the "arts" end of the spectrum than the "tech" side.)
Splintie, the best starter book on wood ID is Bruce Hoadley's Identifying Wood, published by Taunton. Bruce does a good job teaching the terminology and what to look for. The only limitation is that he doesn't cover enough species. Once you've read this book though there are other sources for that...But you're going to get nowhere until you pick up a good hand lens. Something in the 10X to 20X range works best.
SYP, all day long and twice on Sundays......AKA heart pine, rich pine, fatwood etc. Usually comes from longleaf, shortleaf, loblolly, or slash pine. These are all grouped of the Souther Yellow Pines, a southern species. SYP is the heaviest of all native pines in the US, SG close to .5. I would expect "heartpine to be heavier.
Be careful of it around your wood heater the stuff is flammable. Whittle a little bit of it off and put a match to it. Makes excellent kindling, I use Pam cooking spray on my saw blades prior to working the stuff, as you noted it does gum everything up........Dale
Just a 2-cents-worth from downunder - no Eucalypt that I've ever met has a menthol-like (or eucalytus-like) smell to the wood. It's all in the leaves, mate. The dried woods often have a sweetish scent when cut, some a sour sort of smell, but if any exude eucalyptus or menthol, I've yet to meet it.
That side grain shot is just so typical of a softwood..............
IW
Splinty - a possibility is 'Red Pine' (P. resinosa) - "rich in resin and fine grained" - I got into a log of one once that I couldn't saw - too much pitch - color is about right - seems to me more likely than some of the exotics mentioned -
I've googled for twenty minutes and can't come up with a picture of the lumber, only live tree parts, but i found:
I read about its ease in taking preservatives, though i don't understand, if it's full of pitch, how it could take on something else, or how pitchy wood would be good for pulping, for that matter. This that i have is very hard, not somewhat. Think purpleheart for density. It's northern habitat would lead to slow growth, though.
"There has been an alarming increase in the things i know nothing about." --Ashleigh Brilliant
Only the sapwood of the southern yellow pines except treatment well, the heartwood does not accept treatment very well. Hence, don't purchase syp treated lumber with much heartwood. I've seen many veneer core "treated garden timbers" full of termites. Any "pitch pine" if caught, should be pulled prior to going into the vacuum chamber. Someone walking through the "piney woods" of the south that includes Eastern Okla. will find the stuff all over the forest floor, I rots slow,,,,,,,,,,,,ly, I normal carry a few "sticks" back to the truck for kindling. Smelling like turpentine is very descriptive of the wood. I personally dislike working syp due to the mess it makes of my tools.........Dale
Splintie,
I've learned to be cautious about being too certain of anything, but in this case, I'll throw caution into the wind. Petey, Dale and CircleKid are the ones to listen to. Old growth heart pine - no doubt! As it was put: all day, everyday, twice on Sundays. Probably longleaf, which falls in the general classification of SYP, it's just not available anymore as a newly sawn lumber, and therefore looks very different from the SYP you currently see in the lumber yards. Origin - SE US from east Texas into GA & SC. Sawed from the stump prior to 1900 probably.
No question about it.
jdg
Edited 1/16/2003 6:56:20 AM ET by jdg
Edited 1/16/2003 6:58:50 AM ET by jdg
For comparison to your mystry wood, I shot a few pics of work known to be old growth southern longleaf pine. Sorry about the glare. I think the woods are the same.
jdg
Thanks for taking those pictures, jdg. Especially the head rail is a dead ringer for my sample, and the knots match, too, one of the ways i ruled out some other pines.
I saw pix on the web of furniture done in this wood, but i can't figure out how it could be glued or finished with all that resin. Do you have expenience with joining it, and what, if any, is the finish to your trim? I must say, the wood almost looked like it had a finish straight out of the planer. It just shone...or else it's time to change the knives again... :~)
Re: SYP heartwood. A lot of early frame buildings in my area (central Florida) were built of pitch pine (one of the names used) that was harvested from virgin stands in the early and mid-1800s. It was common practice to select the heartwood, or the most resinous pieces, for structures because it was, and still is, impervious to insect and rot problems. When freshly cut, the wood could be nailed. But once the stuff had a chance to harden you couldn't drive a case-hardened nail into it. And, yes, it did and does load up any abrasives used to finish it, so a lot of the early materials were rough finished. Since there was a major enterprize in these parts tapping pines for their sap for use in making turpentine, pitch, etc., there was also a lumbering trade in the kind of pine we're talking about. Even now you can come upon sections of narrow-guage track that had been used for logs, and I've seen many old trees that still have the chevron markings and drip plugs left over from the turpentine days. When the trees fall today, locals let the sapwood rot away and scavenge the heartwood for its use in fireplaces as starter. In the old frame structures you do see end grain like your sample, but only in the old growth timbers. There's a guy near Gainesville (Godwin Lumber) who makes a living salvaging and milling the stuff for big prices. He's been featured on "New Yankee Workshop" with Norm. Some of his stock is from sunken logs harvested a hundred or so yars ago, but some is dry salvage. It's used in flooring a good bit. Don't ask me how they sand it. I think the material has a pretty common history up into the coastal carolinas and westward through Alabama -- maybe elsewhere in the SE.
I have a brain gap putting together the idea of slow growth and near-tropics, but the stands must have been very dense for that to happen. I would have thought the indigenous people would have burned the stands from time to time...?
Slow growth near the tropics?
Man! It's so hot down here in the summer time that everything is slow. Why do you think we talk the way we do?
I have a fair amount of experience with "Old Pine" as we call it here. I love this old wood. There's a large industry in removing longleaf beams from old buildings either selling them as beams or resawing into flooring - just check the ads in Fine Homebuilding or do a search on the web for architectural salvage or pine flooring. In Baton Rouge, darn near every house built in the last 10 years has this stuff on the floors. In this city of 350,000 theres no less than 10 guys selling this stuff at around $2.50 to $4.00 and up per board foot. Most of these beams are coming from old textile mills and vacated warehouses and urban industrial facilities up east. The majority of the beams and flooring in my house came out of Phili. It works fairly easily to me, with the exception that in some pieces the pitch will gum up saw blades, planer knives and router bits and sandpaper. All of the old pine is not a "fat" as your sample. Some is virtually impossible to sand. Other sands just fine. As far as gluing, I've never had a problem at all with either Elmers Carpenter's glue or Titbond II adhering to this wood. I've built a few pieces with it. My kitchen cabinets are faced with it and three bathroom vainities. I even built the top of my bathroom vanity of it - looks great. And as the picture indicates, I have several doors and windows cased with this stuff.
The finish on the door casing is one coat of sanding sealer and two coats of satin polyurethane.
jdg
I agree, I love the old stuff. I installed heart pine floors in my house a couple of years ago. It wears well. It came from Louisiana and the fellow I got it from says they are still logging it, my flooring is not old growth. But the pallets it was shipped on was. Incredible stuff, the weight on some of the two by material was unbelievable. One more note, the largest supply of salvaged timber came from the Sears building in Chicago, that stuff was used all over the U.S. Petey
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