Unknown timber identification

[Maxx02]

I’m trying to restore an old fashioned style office chair and I’d like to identify the wood species. The chair is made in Japan and I suspect it was post 1960 about. The chair has nine spindles which are a nightmare to clean and sand. It is a light, white coloured timber. Can anybody help please?

[pal]

It looks like paulownia

[Maxx02]

It looks like paulownia

Thanks for that, it's a timber I've never heard of. Just watched a YouTube video on paulownia and it certainly matches the qualities of the pieces I have. Nice of them to name a timber after me.:)

Cheers,

Paul

[IanW]

I'm not familiar with paulownia, it's not a wood I've ever worked with, but looking at the pics in the Wood Database (https://www.wood-database.com/paulownia/), it doesn't look like the wood above to me. Your spindle has what look like fat little medullary rays looking at us from the top surface, & the database pics don't show visible rays in paulownia. It's a ring-porous wood with bands of very prominent pores, so you may be able to get a better idea from the end of the spindle rather than the surface. For anything coming from countries that import virtually all the wood they use for manufacturing, from all sorts of places, the chances of it being something nobody here has ever seen or even heard of has to be considered.

Another thing that makes me dubious of the 'paulownia' diagnosis is that it's a soft, light wood that would not really be suitable for chair spindles. In the Database they do list one of it's uses as "furniture" but I suspect that would be case furniture, or as a secondary wood, not for components requiring high strength.

However, all that said, I've been dead wrong more than once.....
:shrug:
Cheers,

[rustynail]

Being Japanese manufacture I would be looking at maples. My first thought was Sugar Maple but the pic looks a bit too soft for that. Mind you, a course, fury sanding can make any timber look soft.

[mic-d]

Could be Beech

[auscab]

In the better picture in your other thread the wood looks more like Beech . https://www.woodworkforums.com/f9/unknown-blotching-256474#post2316384
What makes you think its a Japanese chair ? The tiny amount we can see in the pictures has it looking like a typical English chair leg pattern. Which were made of Beech most of the time . And the Italians have big chair producing factories/ workshops pumping out many tons of those chairs in the English style types made of Beech wood. Or they did 15 years ago.
Show us a pic of the whole chair if possible.

[IanW]

Indeed, I hadn't seen the other pic before, but now I have I would bet London to a brick it's beech, a very sensible choice for chair spindles.

Cheers,

[Maxx02]

In the better picture in your other thread the wood looks more like Beech . https://www.woodworkforums.com/f9/unknown-blotching-256474#post2316384
What makes you think its a Japanese chair ? The tiny amount we can see in the pictures has it looking like a typical English chair leg pattern. Which were made of Beech most of the time . And the Italians have big chair producing factories/ workshops pumping out many tons of those chairs in the English style types made of Beech wood. Or they did 15 years ago.
Show us a pic of the whole chair if possible.

It is stamped twice on the underside with "Made in Japan". The chair is completely disassembled now unfortunately.