Wood Identification Help

[Tim Pettigrew]

This coniferous wood came from a country house in Malvern where I assist twice a year at weekend maintenance working parties.  The caretaker knows my interest in woodturning and puts aside timber for me.

The wood shown here is from a large conifer (at least 24" trunk diameter) as you can see from the photographs.  The trunk was deeply furrowed and by the time I received it most of the bark had stripped off. The wood is crisp (not soft) when turned with, as might be expected, a resinous odour.  It is also extremely coarse textured which I hope is obvious from the third picture.  Identified conifers growing in the woodland included Scots Pine Pinus sylvestris,  Larch Larix spp and Yew Taxus baccata - the latter can obviously be discounted in this instance. 

I do hope someone can help identify this - I have provided a virtual magnifying glass with the pictures (click on them to activate this feature)


General view of the wood showing prominent furrows beneath the bark which has stripped off. Click on picture to activate magnifying glass


Another  view of the wood showing traces of the bark (right example). Click on picture to activate magnifying glass

Close up of turned bowl showing coarse texture of the wood. Click on picture to activate magnifying glass

Any help gratefully received.

Tim

[seventhdevil]

there has obviously been a mixup with the wood being handed over and the discussion as to what you are turning.

the wood in the picture is robinia and not any sort of conifer.

[Les Symonds]

Hi Tim....is it possible that you've posted a wrong photo? I have to agree with Steve that the close-up of the bowl makes it look remarmably like Robinia (false Acacia). As soon as I saw the third photograph my thoughts were that it looked remarkably like a big lump of robinia that I turned a few years back. Coincidentally, mine came from a large country house near Malvern - it had been acquired by a man who sold all of his timber to me when he gave up turning.

I must say that whatever this turns out to be, the images, and especially the virtual-magnifying glass, are excellent - a lesson for us all, there!

Les

[The Bowler Hatted Turner]

looking at the side grain I wouldn't mind betting it is Yew.

[Tim Pettigrew]

Well that is very interesting!  Very many thanks to Steve and Les. No, the photos are all correct, from the raw wood to the final turning.  I assumed it was a conifer but was obviously hopelessly way off the mark.  Looking at other references on the net especially the HOBBITHOUSE pictures there is no doubt about it being Robinia.

Thanks Les for your kind comments.  Good clear photographs are essential for any identification of this kind and the rest is down to the HTML with a bit of Java Scripting thrown in for good measure!

This Forum is fantastic with so many people willing to share their expertise.

Thanks again

Tim

[seventhdevil]

robinia is one of my favorite timbers as it dries so well and is a lovely hard timber so easy to get a good finish on just with danish oil and a buff.

i suggest you use the hobbit house as a reference in the future as paul hinds who runs it is quite knowledgeable and about 30 of his pages have pictures of my bowls of species where he did not have turned examples at the time.

another good website is the "wood database" but if you really want to get into the microscopic identification then this can be an interesting site, you need to know your botanical names though.

http://images.lib.ncsu.edu/luna/servlet

[Tim Pettigrew]

Many thanks Steve, very useful references.

Tim

[seventhdevil]

here are a couple more.

http://www.lesserknowntimberspecies.com/species

http://www.tropicaltimber.info/?s=&advanced_search=1&weight=&hardness=&moisture=&durability=&availability=&strength=&end_uses=&color=