OWT What is the Wood?

[Toymaker Len]

Elm is not a light weight wood. 'The Endeavour' was made of elm below the water line and oak above. The seats of windsor chairs are traditionally made of elm.

[auscab]

I read in The Village carpenter I think ?
Elm was used for cart axles before the days where you could get a blacksmith to make you one from Iron .


Yes TT, the Murray pine is as heavy ,with a strong smell, and hard. I don't know if the smell fades with age ?

An end grain picture of your tool would be good to see as well as the stamp.



I just remembered I have two copies of Wood in Australia by Keith R Bootle , and one is here with me at home .

From the Book

Murray pine is also known as White Cypress Pine or the Botanical name is Callitris columellaris .

Just to compare it to other timbers for what we are talking about ,the book says it has an
Average Dry Density of

Murray Pine ADD 800 KG / m3 to 680KG / m3

Radiata Pine has between 580KG/ m3 to 450KG/m3

American white Oak 750 KG/m3 no other range listed

Jarrah ADD is 820 KG/m3 " "

Its a Ballsy pine tree TT ,Nothing like holding a bit of Radiata Pine, and just like a block of Oak or Jarrah to hold and try and dig your thumb nail into.
$21 a meter for 3M x 150 x 150 posts wet , just around the corner from me.

Rob

[auscab]

I was only at the timber yard pricing some of the Murray Pine last week ,
I reckon the pictures I put up before are from a block of wood with a similar colour to the one I put a red spot on , maybe even lighter .
Have a look at some of the darker colours it comes in .
These are the 125 x 125 posts

Rob

[Toymaker Len]

Here's a bit of elm.

[Twisted Tenon]

Ive taken some pics of the "makers mark". It looks like "P.Becker". Can't tell if this is a brand name or an owners mark. The Murry Pine pics looks like a fit if it was locally made. Otherwise the elm could be a possibility if it was made overseas. I've tried digging my thumb nail into it to no effect. There is no smell though.
The shaft of the router is long too 122 mm. It's meant to rout something deep.

TT

[brontehls]

From the design I would suspect that it is imported from Europe (France or the Low countries)

Most of my info is about French wooden tools

Wooden planes etc came in about 4 grades according to the price, starting with beech, a slight price rise to hornbeam, another larger jump to "fruitier" (probably pear) and then a large jump to "cormier" which is the generic name for the service tree (sorbus).

It is not unusual for there to be large colour variations through the trunk with the heartwood being much darker than the main wood and the sapwood somewhere between in colour.

Tools made from cormier would typically be priced at from one and a half to twice the price of the standard beech model

Neil