Thought It Was Mesquite but now no...What Say You?

[Horsewright]

I was thinking this might be a variety of Mesquite. The longer I leave this block on the workbench the more I'm thinking no. It is extremely hard, dense and heavy. It is harder and heavier than the two known species of mesquite I have on hand. Tip of my knife barely makes a hole where it was easier on the other two.

The block on the right was sawn off the block on the left and sanded to 120 grit.

Close up of the sanded block.

End cut. This was partly why I was thinking mesquite.

From left to right: mystery wood, mesquite from a very old board from a furniture shop in a village outside of Guadlajara MX., and a piece of California mesquite.

Whadya think?

 

[BluntCut MetalWorks]

It looks like common Cumaru - http://www.wood-database.com/lumber-identification/hardwoods/cumaru/

edit: I have a handful BF of Cumaru ~ 1/2 common, 1/2 green-ish. Green-ish has fine grain as Mopane.

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

Cumaru has a very similar look. It also looks a bit like sucupira.

 

[Robert Erickson]

Kinda looks like Honey Mesquite to me.

 

[Horsewright]

Thanks guys. I oiled the sanded piece and it went spectacular. A friend was over hanging in the shop yesterday afternoon, he picked it up and said "this is on my next knife."

 

[Mahoney]

My guess is Apitong, AKA Keruing. Used a lot for truck beds and gates. I have a few scraps around from the last new bed on the truck. Very hard and heavy, enough silica in it to be hard on tooling. Painful splinters... FWIW one of my assistants is very allergic to Apitong, the sawdust makes him break out.

 

[Horsewright]

Thanks Mahoney. After comparing what I have to lots of pics of all the suggestions I'm gonna have to go with Mahoney's suggestion of apitong, particularly after i oiled it.

 

[Horsewright]

Thanks Mahoney. After comparing what I have to lots of pics of all the suggestions I'm gonna have to go with Mahoney's suggestion of apitong, particularly after I oiled it.

 

[wdtorque]

Looks like the wood used as cross pieces on power lines to me.
Don't have a name, hard and heavy though.
Dozier

 

[Erin Burke]

Looks like the wood used as cross pieces on power lines to me.
Don't have a name, hard and heavy though.
Dozier

Yep Dozier... that's actually called Apitong.
We used to use a lot of apatong arms... but we've now transitioned more to fiberglass for our heavy crossarms.
Erin