Thread: Red cedar or not

I'd sure like to have a peek at some of that under a microscope.
I have a reference collection of wood anatomy microscope slides, maybe 300 species.
Shouldn't take long.

As a graduate student, both in Canada and in Australia, I got some really interesting
wood anatomy puzzles handed to me for analysis. Enjoyed the work very much.

From the gross anatomy pix, the quarter-sawn wood rays are too satin in appearance and too gray in color to be ARC.
The various genera labelled as mahogany (Sweitenia, etc) have uniseriate rays thus never as obvious as these.

Hi Robson Valley,
To do this I guess I would need a microscope with camera attachment? I do have 3 off the lay magnifying glasses with the lamps. Could that possibly magnify enough (I doubt but got to ask)?

What magnification would I require?

I had previously wanted to buy a 3D microscope (I think that is what they were called for electronic inspection work) but lost the details of the Chinese suppler that builds the good ones at reasonable price.
Cheers,

I'd be happy with 100X (10X ocular and 10X objective lenses.) A stereo 3D microscope would be fun
but I want more mag and transmitted light to see details in the wood rays and vessel end plates if I have to.
My house is full of "stuff." but I'm not sure that I could lay my hand on a box of slides if I had to.

What does your nearest CSIRO office have to say? They used to run a wood ID service decades ago
for museums and restorers of houses and picture frames, etc.

Originally Posted by Robson Valley

I'd be happy with 100X (10X ocular and 10X objective lenses.) A stereo 3D microscope would be fun
but I want more mag and transmitted light to see details in the wood rays and vessel end plates if I have to.
My house is full of "stuff." but I'm not sure that I could lay my hand on a box of slides if I had to.

What does your nearest CSIRO office have to say? They used to run a wood ID service decades ago
for museums and restorers of houses and picture frames, etc.

CSIRO Forestry has not existed as a division since 2007. Some personnel were absorbed into other divisions but most of those remnants were made redundant in the recent budget cuts. This ID service is therefore unlikely to exist anymore unless it was in another unit. Even if that were the case it undoubtedly has been canned.

Got a shock earlier this week when I visited someone and found almost identical table in the kitchen. They are planning to strip theirs and they have the middle leaf sections which I don't.