Timber Identity help please.

[Taffy Evans]

Hi guys, can you help to identify this timber for me please. I’ve been asked to build a guitar for a customer who wants timber used that was stashed in his [recently passed] dads shed; this is one of the pieces. It’s very hard and heavy and the pics of it are straight of the thicknesser, not sanded or any finish applied. Thanks for your help.

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[Kim]

Hard and heavy....Looks like flat sawn bull-oak, belah or river oak to me Taffy, all of which are casurinas. Perhaps it maybe beefwood which is a grevillia...but I still reckon its one of the casurina of some sort like I first mentioned.

Bull-oak: http://www.ttit.id.au/treepages/bulloak.htm

Beefwood: http://www.ttit.id.au/treepages/beefwood.htm

Any ideas what state in Australia it cam from?

Cheers

Kim

[MBP]

Could be anything.

A few to add to the list

River she oak
Silky oak
Jarrah
Red gum
river red gum.
Flooded gum

[kiwigeo]

How much do ya want for it?

[Bob Connor]

I reckon it's Bulloak Taffy.

Here's a picture of a Bulloak bridge I made a while back. Pretty dense and heavy stuff.

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[J.F. Custom]

Yep, the grain speaks of an oak (casuarina type) to me too.

There are sooo many timbers in this country though. Hard to ever be certain...

Jeremy.

[MBP]

I dont think Bulloaks gets that big though.

Bob,
Was that bridge as hard/harder then ebony?

[Bob Connor]

Bob,
Was that bridge as hard/harder then ebony?

It was harder than Brigalow but not as hard as Cooktown Ironwood.

[Taffy Evans]

Thanks for the input and help everyone.
Some of the suggestions I could rule out as I have samples in the shop for comparison.

Martin, how bad do you want this sample? I'd hate to have pay freight on it, Anyway I'm coming to Adelaide soon, so I could bring it as excess baggage.

Bob, I did a hardness test on a number of hardwood timber samples and it appears the same as my Cooktown Ironwood. Not a high tech test just dropping the same weight from the same height and measuring the ding in the timber.

I cut up a piece and the dust does not smell or irritate, but the freshly cut surface smells kind off a sweet rancid smell.

The pic shows the hand planed shavings. Any way thanks I'll do some more checking as I work with it, if I work with it.

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[kiwigeo]

Martin, how bad do you want this sample? I'd hate to have pay freight on it, Anyway I'm coming to Adelaide soon, so I could bring it as excess baggage.

Give me plenty of warning before you arrive in Adelaide......would be good to lunch it again with you at the local.

[MBP]

In general,


Bull Oak is very very hard, harder than Cooktown Ironwood.

Taffy can you cut a piece and see if it floats?

Bob, Did you buy that as Bulloak? Looks a lot like Forest Sheoak and the hardness would make sense. Do you know where its from?

[auscab]

It might be better to see a part of the edge of the board planed Taffy , that should show up the medullary ray like in Bobs sample, Bob’s has a bit of both, end and side of rays.

Your sample being flat sawn , shows what looks like the ends of them only.

I don’t know if this is true as it was passed on to me from an Antique dealer.

The storey he told me was, a Bloke from the CSIRO told him that when testing for what type of timber a sample is , when it comes to Casurina from all across the country, once it is taken from the tree the difference between one and another can not be picked, even under the microscope.

[stopper]

I think the water filled cracks in the surface are giving people the idea it is an oak. Looks like red ironbark to me or perhaps another heavy eucalypt. Nothing special I'm afraid.

regards
Steve

[Kim]

I'll stick with bull-oak. Density is not a very accurate indicator of species as it can vary substantially from tree to tree within species logged from the same location and can swing dramatically should you take samples from each extreme of soil conditions and rain fall in which that species will grow both of which have a huge impact on the eventual size a tree will grow as well. That said, in general terms it appears that bull-oak weighs in at 1050kg per m3 and cooktown ironwood comes in at 1220kg.

Another point to be made is that there are many 'forms' within species of a genus which can produce wood that is completely indistinguishable from one to the other. Point in hand is Bull-Oak, Belah and River Oak which can all be very difficult to tell apart once the foliage has been removed as often it is only leaf, seed, or flower variation which had allowed the botanical separation in the first place. The same goes for many of the spruces, particularly red and black spruce..

CF Martin had high demand for red spruce, but its clear that both red and black spruces had been logged extensively from the Appalachains near Nazareth. No one can tell one log from the other once the foliage has been removed. So who knows how many of the famous pre-war Martins with their magic red spruce tops actually have black spruce.. One thing that's a certain is that Taffy's board is not jarrah. I've worked with tones of the stuff and have never seen any jarrah look anything like that. In fact its highly unlikely to be any of the other eucalypt either as the medullaries are far to prominent to be much else than one of our aussie oaks..

Cheers

Kim

[curly]

I'd be inclined to agree that the board pictured is a heavy Eucalypt or a nearly related genus such as Syncarpia , Corymbia or the like . Firstly the board is backsawn so even a heavy ray figure would show as fine pointy ended clusters of darker ray cells toward the centre , opening out into slightly broader lens shaped cells to the sides where the board closer approaches the quarter .
The darker lines on the surface of the board are very likely fine drying checks which are common in many of the high density Euc's ( and plenty of other species/genus for that matter ) , particularly when backsawn . This would be easily observed by putting a liberal amount of meths or liquid of your choice on the piece and observing how it dries . If the dark lines were ray cells they would dry at the same rate or quicker than the rest of the timber . A fine crack or check on the other hand would hold moisture longer .
As to what I reckon it is , that's always a harder question , I'd be investigating the box and ironbark groupings of Eucalypt first , though Euc's such as saligna or tereticornis or resinifera . . . . . . . are not impossible . From there you could look at Syncarpia glommifera or any number of rarer rainforest trees like the Penda's , Backhousia ironwoods or who knows .
So as to not get too abstact , I reckon a good practice when the timber is not super distinctive is to look at it's provenance , that is where did it come from . Many timbers in the not too distant past were used mostly where they grew . Another good practice in I.D.ing recycled timber is to look at what it was used for previously .
Anyways , hopefully that's helpful .
If a positive I.D is necessary then you could contact Gary Hopewell at the Queensland D.P.I. for an endgain analysis . I'm sure other people could do it too , he's just someone that comes to mind that does it in a professional capacity.
In any case I reckon Eucatypts are highly under utilised for instruments , to be sure , it's a pretty board .

[auscab]

First post , Welcome curly

Thats an impressive list of timber possibilities ,and with a user name like curly .

Hmmmm, just a guess. Have you got a beard? And have you finished that knock out ukulele?

[Kim]

It might be better to see a part of the edge of the board planed Taffy , that should show up the medullary ray like in Bobs sample, Bob’s has a bit of both, end and side of rays.

Your sample being flat sawn , shows what looks like the ends of them only.

I don’t know if this is true as it was passed on to me from an Antique dealer.

The storey he told me was, a Bloke from the CSIRO told him that when testing for what type of timber a sample is , when it comes to Casurina from all across the country, once it is taken from the tree the difference between one and another can not be picked, even under the microscope.

Indeed, welcome to the ANZLF Curly.

+1...on your thoughts Rob. An images of the edges of the board would be a big help.

I don't know about anyone else's monitor, but those darker lines don't look like surface checks or cellular collapse upon the surface to me, but then with computer screens and digital images being what they are, and no real detail to confirm either way, then I guess anything is possible.

Cheers

Kim

[curly]

It's true that I.D. ing timber without foliage fruits and provenance is difficult to be sure . On Casuarinas there are some features of the timber that can lead you in closer however . The timber of Belah , both C. cristata and C. pauper are distinctive in having greatly reduced rays , that is to say the wood looks nothing like a 'she oak ' . The colour varies a lot based on the twenty odd trees that I have milled but more or less the timber looks like Mulga . Buloke and Rose She oak are reasonably similar , Buloke as others have noted is heavier and has a much higher janka hardness . The non ray timber of Rose she oak is usually redder than buloke . W.A. she oak , much used for guitars at the moment is something else in being much lighter softer and also more stable than any other she oak I have worked with . River She oak tends to be more of a pinky tan colour with the rays being burgandy or even a bit purple . Swamp she oak is pretty similar . There are any number of smaller size or more localised Casuarinas ( and Allocasuarinas ) , the couple I have worked with locally ; Black she Oak and drooping she oak , were pretty typical of the rose she oak type feature . Something common to all she oaks that I have encountered is that they are death to the paper in a thickness sander . Aside from W.a she oak they are all splitty to dry .
Another thing I have noticed in the sample boards in the photos is the tunnels of pin hole ( or ambrosia borer ) . These are not a problem in the sense that the borer responsible infects either a diseased tree or a downed log , they are not active in dry timber .

Given that the boards are backsawn ( so will have greater dimensional movement ) , are of unknown species ( so too it's properties will be unknown ) and there are borer holes , I'd be wary of building a fine instrument from it . What I can see in it is bindings . If you were to shallow resaw binding stock a good amount would be perfectly quartered , you could chuck out ( or fill ) the ones that showed borer tunnels , and the surface checks , if indeed that is what they are , would only be at the edges .
Well guessed there Rob , tis true that I am somewhat hairy of the facial region , and yeah the fancy uke is done . I'll upload some photos soon . Got some nice plane tree binding stuff if you want it still .

[auscab]

Well guessed there Rob , tis true that I am somewhat hairy of the facial region , and yeah the fancy uke is done . I'll upload some photos soon . Got some nice plane tree binding stuff if you want it still .

Pete, good to see you here. I would really like to see your Ukulele again ,so will every one else here I'm sure. its a stunner ,there are quite a few stunners here in the gallery section,you could put in in there.
I am interested in more plane tree ,I'm surrounded by the trees and cant seem to get a stick of it, every time I see the loppers doing their job, what is being cut is to small or it's been fed straight into the chipper, I will pm you about it.

[woodrat]

Well guessed there Rob , tis true that I am somewhat hairy of the facial region , and yeah the fancy uke is done . I'll upload some photos soon . Got some nice plane tree binding stuff if you want it still .

Pete, good to see you here. I would really like to see your Ukulele again ,so will every one else here I'm sure. its a stunner ,there are quite a few stunners here in the gallery section,you could put in in there.
I am interested in more plane tree ,I'm surrounded by the trees and cant seem to get a stick of it, every time I see the loppers doing their job, what is being cut is to small or it's been fed straight into the chipper, I will pm you about it.

Rob,I sawsome quartersawn Plane in the UK last year.Fresh of the saw ( I happened to go to a small millers operation in rural Devon) it was very nice with a lacy fleck and some pinks and mauves. I think that they would fade as it dried but it still would be pretty wood. There are some people who use it for guitars.

John

[auscab]

Hi John,
I used some on my first build, the binding, heel cap and end piece. The stuff I used was as light as Maple or Beech. It has a nice fleck, on my binding I cut it so it was not as visible. The logs I got were short so for the binding I had to join it. It would be interesting to see a back and side set from it.

[curly]

G'day Rob and all my fellow wood nuts out there , In my day job as an arborist I do get the occasional plane tree , sometimes known as lace wood and even sycamore ( confusing name there as it mostly applies to a close reliative of maple) . I haven't paid particularly close attention to the species , but the job sheet has always said Platanus occidentalis . Branch material is mostly lighter sapwood , though now and then we get a full removal of a failing or a diseased tree.
What I have in stock at the moment are back and sides sets ( oversize ) and some thicker stock out of a ribbon stripe figured tree . I am still trying to learn this computer business so uploading photos are beyond me for now , I am yet to figure how to reduce their size . The plane tree sets I have are seriously busy , loaded with both pronounced grain and a fair amount of figure . The closest native timber to it I can think of would be Booyong ; Argyrodendron sp. , an old N.S.W. rainforest timber .
There is a heap of timber and instument eye candy I'd love to share with the guitar community .
We'll see how I go but I'd I'd be willing to do some timber/tree profiles , particularly for native arid zone timbers which is my main experience .