what do I have here ??? (a lesson in identifying a hardwood.)**Solved-Hickory**

[WDH]

Ty,

Your method works just fine!  Most people would not recognize a parenchyma cell if they ran into one on a dark road one night  . 

You also have to use all the senses and not just rely on books.  Walnut and white oak have very distinctive smells, but of course you cannot yet smell on the Forum, but Jeff will probably fix that too soon  .

[SwampDonkey]

I use Hoadley's books. I was able to ID some black ash in the barn frame I'm restoring, with confirmation from Hoadley himself.

......and a little coaching as I recall.

Seems to me someone thought they had black locust for awhile.

Some may have mentioned.....

Looks ash-like, fine rays and solitary late wood pores, tyloses in early wood pores. Kind of dark though, should be more grayish brown for white ash. Not very rot resistant. Was thinking sassafras, but the pore pattern is not right in the latewood. Ash is quite tough stuff in my experience.

And someone jumped the gun a little here with his Hoadley book...

I think you may have it SD. I compared my photo to the Hoadley photos for white and black ash. Looks like white to me. Early on I had compared the tangential section to white ash, but wasn't sure. Now, I am more confident. I tried to look at a piece of white ash here, but couldn't see it as well as the photo. I may try to get another photo of some known white ash at work where I have my "laboratory" equipment, i.e. a sharp chisel and a tripod for my camera.

Until........

It's ash alright, nothing else fits. But, black ash is light like American elm when dry. White ash is heavy and hard and lustrous, black is dull when worked, no luster. There are parenchyma joining some pores in the white ash and they don't usually do that in black. If you look close to my picture, some looked linked in a chain of pores in the late wood by the parenchyma. Dave's are more solitary, so I would say he has black ash there along with the brown heartwood. White ash would have light yellow streaks in the heartwood, not as dark as black ash.

Then the revelation and proclamation... 

It's black ash. Confirmed by R. Bruce Hoadley.

[Dave Shepard]

I didn't mean to slight the Forums help on the ID. Just the result of hit-and-run posting. Before I started the thread, I thought it was ash, but was vetoed by the architect. That started the whole discussion here. When I got the camera and did the close ups was when we could really get a handle on the situation. I was able to send a sample to Hoadley through a connection and he re-confirmed the popular consensus. You, too were on the black locust path until the pics.

[SwampDonkey]

You, too were on the black locust path until the pics.

Yes, it could have been pine according to some.

I was just giving you a hard time Dave. No one felt slighted on this end. I don't get worked up that easy.

[mandolin]

I just sawed up about 300 bf of sweetgum. This looks just like it. Let it lay out in the sun a few days and if it curls up and warps until you could make a wagon wheel out of it, it's sweetgum.

[SwampDonkey]

I don't think its sweetgum.

Sweetgum isn't ring porous, but diffuse with non visible pores of uniform size across the ring like hard maple and dogwood.

[WDH]

Sweetgum is definitely warpy  .

[SwampDonkey]

American elm is to, I blame it on the interlock grain. I've never seen one elm board lay flat. That being said, my living room is elm paneling.

[WDH]

I have about had it with interlocked grain wood  .  I have sawn hackberry, sweetgum, and sycamore that looked gorgeous off the saw but ended up with major losses due to warp and twist.  That is too much work for such poor results.  Like was posted earlier, that stuff can warp up in a circle  .  I made a project out of sycamore and two out of sweetgum.  All three ended up with warp and twist that ruined the pieces.  That stuff just hates to be glued to another board.  I guess they are like identical poles on a magnet, they just repell each other.  That stuff must be perfectly dry, or it will move once you plane it.

Now, I have used hackberry and sycamore successfully as drawer sides where you were only using a single board.  But, my experience has been very poor with any type of glued up panel.  However, I would give it a try as paneling in a room where each board is free to move of its own accord.

There is a reason that interlocked grain domestic wood is mainly used for pallets.

[SwampDonkey]

I'm hearing ya.

This paneling I'm talking about is veneered like plywood.

[woodtrader]

good posts,
thx for sharing