Thread: Help with identifying timber used in this old cabinet please.

G'day Roy, I'm far from an expert but I'm thinking red cedar. Happy to be proved wrong though.

There doesn't appear to be enough grain pattern or colour for that to be red cedar.

My opinion says that it is more likely Hoop Pine, or perhaps Kauri.

If you could find and unimportaant area of the piece to sand right back to original timber that will give you a good indication.

Originally Posted by artme

There doesn't appear to be enough grain pattern or colour for that to be red cedar.

My opinion says that it is more likely Hoop Pine, or perhaps Kauri.

If you could find and unimportaant area of the piece to sand right back to original timber that will give you a good indication.

Thanks for that suggestion. The back side of the crown moulding is an easily assessible area, so I'll do a bit of out of sanding in a small area today, and post some photos.

I've got some modern hoop pine here, but the grain looks nothing much like what is on this cabinet - but it occurred to me that the scrap of modern hoop pine that I have is probably plantation grown, whilst whatever was used in this cabinet would have been forest cut old growth, and the old growth grain may look substantially different.

Anyway, I'll posyt the photos later today, and see what everyone thinks....

Thanks,

Roy

Old Hoop has a characteristic smell that seems to last a very long time - 50 or 60 years for sure, but not certain if it lasts 100+ years. You get the characteristic whiff as soon as you start planing or sawing it. Sanding a bit somewhere where it's not visible might give you an olfactory clue.

The grain pattern on the close-up looks more typical of a softwood, but accurately identifying any wood from a pic is virtually impossible. As you say, it was most likely made from a freely-available local wood, & Hoop would fit that bill nicely, so if it is a softwood, that would be the best bet. It was certainly used a lot around that era.

In any case, I don't think matching the exact wood will be the end of your worries. If you can find some well-aged Hoop boards to start with, it would help, but matching the aged finish of the original piece, particularly on a softwood, would be the part that I'd be worrying most about (unless you are an experienced restorer/repairer & know all the tricks!). Having a photo of the original piece to work from is a stroke of luck, even if it only gives you a general idea of the base - you should be able to tell if it had a writing compartment or just drawers or doors, for e.g. You can probably take a good guess at any details by comparing with the bookcase section. Looks like a lot of fun & a worthwhile project - good luck with it!

Cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

Old Hoop has a characteristic smell that seems to last a very long time - 50 or 60 years for sure, but not certain if it lasts 100+ years. You get the characteristic whiff as soon as you start planing or sawing it. Sanding a bit somewhere where it's not visible might give you an olfactory clue.

Ian,

Thanks for that suggestion. I sanded a bit of hoop pine scrap to remind myself what hoop pine resins smelt like. Then I sanded a small section on the back of the crown moulding. There was no discernable odour on the old wood (other than a fresh dry wood smell), but as you suggested the typical resinous odour of hoop pine may evaporate after a hundred years or so.
Sanded old wood.jpg
I photographed the sanded area of the back of the crown moulding. I also compared the grain to a piece of freshly sanded flat sawn hoop pine (but my photos of the new hoop pine were no good), and the grain patterns are quite different. As you can see in the photo at left, the old timber has a very distinct grain pattern with a fair bit of colour contrast between the growth rings. The modern plantation grown hoop pine sample lacks contrast in the growth rings, with the rings being much less distinct - but that might just be as a result of being modern fast grown plantation timber.

I couldn't find hoop pine scrap that has the same rift sawn cut as the sample I'm looking at in the piece of furniture. I have two samples of hoop pine, one flat sawn and one quarter sawn. If I had a scrap piece of hoop pine that was rift sawn, the grain may look much more similar.

So, the jury is still out ...... although I think I'm leaning towards it being hoop pine. It would be nice to think it was Aussie Red Cedar, but I've looked at photos of Toona Australis timber samples and I don't think that there is a match.

As for potential problems in matching the old finish when I build the new base for this cabinet. I don't see that as being a problem. I've built a few antique reproduction pieces, mainly out of silky oak, over the years. In each case I used traditional style finishes (stain and shellac), but I never try to make a new reproduction look old. In fact, when I brand my pieces, I always include a date in the brand to indicate that it is definitely a modern reproduction, and not a genuine antique (not really necessary as my woodwork is not good enough to fool an antique dealer anyway).

The oldest reproduction that I've built is now fourty years old, and it's new finish is now starting to get that aged look. So the base that I plan to build for this cabinet will look new to start with, but I'd like to think that in fourty or so years, when I'm long gone, that it will have toned down and will then blend in with the original cabinet.

So, thanks for the help.

Regards,

Roy

Hi Roy, I suspect that your timber is Kauri Pine, genus Agathus. The Australian Kauri is very similar in appearance to NZ Kauri, which was also used extensively here once we wiped out our local forest stocks of Kauri. The piece has all the appearance of a stained pine. I have an antique Kauri Pine table that looks just like your photo above. The early wood/latewood figure is the same as your photo.

Also, one of the really distictive features of Hoop Pine is that it has a "fleck" pattern called leaf traces in it. I don't have photo, sorry, though I am currently making a bookcase in beautiful Hoop from Sandgate Timber Mill so I may be able to get some if you need them.

If you get some Kauri and want to make it look like your piece you should be able to achieve that with either a spirit based wood stain, or perhaps one of the water based stains (though I haven't used those myself) and then finishing with brown button shellac. I get mine from Shines Shellac and apply it with a rubber.

Good luck
David

Sorry, wasnt trying to tell you things you already know, tapatalk is acting strangely so I could't see all your last post!