Calling all Wood Wizzards Photo Update

Horsewright

Horsewright

Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
Joined
Oct 4, 2011
Messages
13,340
What do we have here guys? My brother found this board in our father's old barn. he lives at the old place now and was clenaing up the barn. Can't even begin to tell ya how old it is or how long it'd been there. Definitely hard enough for handles. I'm thinking some kind of mahogany. What say you?

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Dampened with water:

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Not a mahogany i dont think, sand some sand tell me how it smells, also is the dust red or kind of brown?

Im thinking possibly narra, a type of paduak, or possibly some rosewood.

Bubinga is also definitely a possibilty
 
Thanks guys!

I'll see if I can get to sanding some today Ben. Got a bunch of horse stuff to do, may not get to it.
 
Greenberg Woods said:
Not a mahogany i dont think, sand some sand tell me how it smells, also is the dust red or kind of brown?

Im thinking possibly narra, a type of paduak, or possibly some rosewood.

Bubinga is also definitely a possibilty
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Ok Ben and guys. Red sawdust and a spicy smell similar to cocobolo. I had two assistant sniffers and one said it smelled “yummy kinda like pipe tobacco” and the wife says it smells like when you are working cocobolo.
 
Siamese or east indian rosewood is my guess, that smell really pushes me away from it being a padauk or mahogany. Theres a cariation of Indian rosewood common in Indonesia they call sonokeling that can show that sort of even red grain with dark line figureing.

In the end, we'll probably never know exactly but one of the S.E asian rosewoods would be my best guess given all the info.
 
I’ve worked with quite a bit of East Indian and this is different so probably the Siamese which I’ve not worked with before. Thanks for all the help.
 
All-heart redwood used to be common in California. Why would your dad have some exotic Asian wood laying around?
 
Redheart or Bloodwood are also possibilities. I haven't done much work with redheart, but I do have a piece on hand right now that looks similar. I have done quite a bit of work with bloodwood, and while it normally doesn't have as much figure, it definitely has a bit of a spicy, sweet smell. It kind of reminds me of cinnamon.

Padauk always seemed to have sawdust that was a bit more bright orange to me, kind of like a subdued cheetoh color. Bloodwood has red sawdust.
 
Greenberg Woods said:
Siamese or east indian rosewood is my guess, that smell really pushes me away from it being a padauk or mahogany. Theres a cariation of Indian rosewood common in Indonesia they call sonokeling that can show that sort of even red grain with dark line figureing.

In the end, we'll probably never know exactly but one of the S.E asian rosewoods would be my best guess given all the info.
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Actually the more I dug around on the info you provided Ben the more I'm leaning to the Sonokeling.
lawp said:
All-heart redwood used to be common in California. Why would your dad have some exotic Asian wood laying around?
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Yes, but I'm quite familiar with redwood and this isn't redwood, I've used redwood on many knife handles. This is too hard and redwood doesn't have that smell when sanding for sure. My father was a world traveller and ended WW2 as an Army Air Corp base commander in India. He flew "the Hump" many times. He spent quite a bit of time in the area this board would of come from. He sent back/brought back many items from around the world. He was also a master wood worker and had an interest in exotic woods. Him having a board of some exotic rosewood stuck in the back corner of the barn with some of his older woodworking tools would have been more in character than not. Thanks for the idea though on the redwood.

Curse The Sky said:
Redheart or Bloodwood are also possibilities. I haven't done much work with redheart, but I do have a piece on hand right now that looks similar. I have done quite a bit of work with bloodwood, and while it normally doesn't have as much figure, it definitely has a bit of a spicy, sweet smell. It kind of reminds me of cinnamon.

Padauk always seemed to have sawdust that was a bit more bright orange to me, kind of like a subdued cheetoh color. Bloodwood has red sawdust.
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I've used bloodwood before too and this works different. In fact when I was using it I'd asked Ben for tips and he mentioned to be careful with the bloodwood as it has a tendancy to burn. Yesterday with this board I was leaning into a 9" 60 grit ceramic disc on a Grizzly 6x48/9" combo and it was at warp speed. No burning on the corner I sanded for the girls to smell. It works like a rosewood.

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These pics I pirated off the net are of sonokeling and I really think thats what this board is.
 
Certainly has some similarities to Kingwood but probably not. The database link says the tree is small, never having a trunk bigger than 2’ diameter. Lumber is very rare from Kingwood as the tree doesn’t grow big enough. This board is 12” wide.
 
Some local version of dalbergia latifolia i think. Maybe a mainland variety im not familar with, maybe island grown sonokleng, but im quite certain on a type of indian rosewood.
 
Greenberg Woods said:
Some local version of dalbergia latifolia i think. Maybe a mainland variety im not familar with, maybe island grown sonokleng, but im quite certain on a type of indian rosewood.
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Thanks for your input Ben, I'm agreeing. Thanks everybody. Time to make some scales.
 
If my American English is up to standard then it is impolite to say that I like your wood. But I do, beautiful stuff!
 
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