Thread: Identifying a light coloured hardwood

Originally Posted by BEM

It was a closed down flooring place. The free pile was in no way related to the other lots. I think a lot of them were feet for wood lots. E.g. operating like pallets with banding around them. Like when you buy a wood from the wood merchant it comes bound with foot blocks.

In that case - being a flooring company - I will stick with my most likely a "Flindersia" ID - plenty of "Flindersia's" have been used for parquetry flooring particularly "Northern Silver Ash." Somewhere in my wood stash I have some parquetry blocks (approx 300 x 100 mm iirc) of NSA that were given to me by another woodie mate.

But as Crocy mentions it could have come from anywhere across the globe.

As Bushmiller also states "Trade Names" are problematic as they group a number of wood species, and not necessarily from the one genus with similar properties, under one "standard trade name" for marketing purposes. We actually have an Australian Standard - "AS/NZS 1148-2001 Timber—nomenclature—Australia, New Zealand and imported species" to avoid some of the confusion.

I've got the exact measurements but I cant work out how to do the math. It was never my strong point. I have a very accurate calibrated scale. Here are the numbers.

91.37g
L: 155.5mm
W: 31mm
D: 20mm

Does anyone want to have a go?

That should be about 947.7kg/m^3

BEM

Thank you for the figures.

My calculation rounded comes to 948kg/ m³, which means it is absolutely not Meranti as it is on a par with some of the more dense Aussie hardwoods. In case my maths has also let me down I would welcome confirmation of my result from others.

As it was significantly higher than I was expecting, to verify what we might expect I found four quite different timbers lying around in the shed. Normally I would have a choice of many, but recently I embarked on a clean up and they have all been put away in another shed. The place is uncharacteristically tidy.

The timbers were Radiata Pine (reject packing case material), Cypress Pine (white), a non descript hardwood (probably a bearer from a hardwood pallet) and a piece of scungy Forest Red Gum (full of beetle holes): The truth is that all the timbers were scungy. I make mention of this as they may not be completely typical and may be on the light side. They were all cut to the same size as your piece. Although some show different weights for the same species, they all came from four boards!! One for each species. Just goes to show how variable timber can be.


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From Bootle's book Wood in Australia the ADD densities are:

Radiata Pine 450kg/m³ to 580kg/m³ (Av: 500kg/m³)
Cypress Pine 680kg/m³
Non specific HW N/A. Typically Aussi HWs will be in the range 750kg/m³ to 1200kg/m³. The Tasmanian Oak group are 680kg/m³ to 820kg/m³ to give some perspective.
Forest Red Gum 1050kg/m³

Just be aware that in addition to variation within a timber species there is also some margin of error in our sample pieces too. We could easily be 10% out because of the sample size. I am not casting doubt on the scales: More to do with the samples themselves. Were they truly square for example?

I hope this helps the timber specialists get a little closer to identification for you.

Regards
Paul

Edit: Looks like Manetje has confirmed my calcs as he got exactly the same as I and posted while I was working on my post.

I’m going to throw a wild card in, an just from looking at the OPs first picture.
I’m suggesting a Bamboo ???.

But I’m very very very new too timber identifying.

You may commence sniggering.

Cheers Matt.

Thanks mannetje and Bushmiller. I'd be interested to know how either of you worked it out, if you don't mind. PM me if you don't want to put it up here.
Thanks for all the effort.

Lyndon

Originally Posted by Simplicity

I’m going to throw a wild card in, an just from looking at the OPs first picture.
I’m suggesting a Bamboo ???..

Don't think so Matt, bamboo is a monocot (a grass, actually) and they don't have medullary rays, their "wood" structure is just a bundle of fibres. I've also never seen a bamboo with walls that thick, though maybe they do occur somewhere...
Cheers,

Now that we have a reasonable estimate of density I will throw in Crows Ash Findersia australis or possibly White Mahogany Eucalyptus acmenoides as candidates. Though I would not rule out a very dense sample of either of Yellowwood Ash (Flindersia colliana) or perhaps Cairns Hickory (Flindersia ifflianna)

Fresh thought - could that be a Chinese elm?

While it seems unlikely it would have come from a supplier for flooring etc, it does grow in a weedlike fashion so they're likely being felled all the time in odd situations.

Originally Posted by BEM

I'm making a pine shoe box for outside the back door (to keep spiders out of my shoes ). I am making the "feet" of the box out of a light coloured hardwood that I got in a bundle of mixed woods a while back. I have no idea what it is but I'd like to. Here are some closeup photos. Does anyone have a clue what wood it is?

Thanks
Lyndon

Attachment 506471 Attachment 506472

Attachment 506473 Attachment 506474

Hi Lyndon, if we want to calculate the density we want the measurements in units of kg and cubic meters and then divide the kg by the cubic meters to get the density in kg/m^3.

So in this case to get the weight in kg we divide the weight in grams by 1000: 91.37g/1000 = 0.09137kg

To get the volume in m^3 we divide the length measurements in mm by 1000 to get them in meters, and then multiply them together to get the volume in m^3:

L: 155.5mm/1000 = 0.1555m
W: 31mm/1000 = 0.031m
D: 20mm/1000 = 0.02m

L x W x D = 0.1555x0.031x0.02 = 0.00009641m^3

So the density in kg/m^3 is 0.09137/0.00009641 = 947.7kg/m^3

Well, at that density I'll take my guess of Meranti and eat it.

Thanks mannetje for the equation. I was close, I just had my decimal point in the wrong place. I didn't convert to metres.
I must see if I can get my hands on a Findersia species to compare. Nothing beats a hands on comparison.

Originally Posted by BEM

Thanks mannetje for the equation. I was close, I just had my decimal point in the wrong place. I didn't convert to metres.
I must see if I can get my hands on a Findersia species to compare. Nothing beats a hands on comparison.

Boutique Timbers (Boutique Timbers) on this forum typically has Crows Ash etc.

Cheers Moby. I'll check them out.
Edit. I just had a look. Wrong state for me. I'm in Melbourne.