Thread: Timber identification - Cedar??

Bell Brothers used a variety of different timbers thru that period you stated.
They were masters of disguise, when it came to adding colour to an ordinary bit of radiata pine and turning it into a very expensive timber like Cedar.

I cannot tell you what timber it is under the colour and polish, BUT, it sure does not look like cedar, with that open grain showing in a couple of the pics.

Try and find a genuine bit of polished cedar and once seen, you will soon notice that what you have is not cedar.

Have a look at the link below and notice that rich lustre that only a good bit of polished cedar can produce.


Australian Cedar Chiffonier. - Chiffoniers & Credenzas - Antique furniture - South Perth Antiques & Collectables

Some bits do look like Toona - the underside of the table for e.g., but the grain is quite coarse, moreso than typical Australian 'cedar'. I've used importded Toona (from Malaysia iirc) that had coarse grain like that. Quite a lot of Toona was imported from the tropical areas to the north of us during the 80s under various trade names like 'kalantas' etc. Some was indistinguishable from our cedar, some was much coarser-grained. Local cedar was getting pretty scarce in commercial quantities by then, so I would not be surprised if Bell bros. used it too.

The chiffonier does not look like typical cedar. if I had to guess my first suggestion would be mahogany, the rowed grain is far more suggestive of mahogany, and plantation mahogany from Fiji has been available for some time. Mahogany is a very close relative of Toona & they can sometimes be difficult to distinguish with certainty, particularly under layers of finish. One clue is that cedar rarely has distinctly rowed grain whereas it's a common feature of mahogany.

Weight is usually the best guide, Toona is a very light wood wherever it comes from, it gets a bit denser in cooler climates, but I don't think it ever gets as dense as mahogany. The plantation mahogany is less dense than old-grwoth mahogany from the Americas, but still noticeably heavier size for size than any Toona.

But take my advice & never go to court on the basis of an id from pictures!

Cheers,

PS: Mahogany is a much more practical wood for furniture than cedar anyway - much harder to scuff & mark. In fact that's another test you can apply. Try pressing a thumbnail into somewhere out of sight on that chiffonier - if you can make a good impression with a fingernail then it is most likely cedar, if not, go for mahogany....

Thank you very much for the advice and background mardtrp and IanW! Very helpful and certainly gives me a base to work on. I’ll endeavour to track down a piece of polished cedar to compare and study.

And wise words re caution identifying wood from pictures only IanW!

This Chiffonier is Mahogany .




That looks to be Mahogany as well .


That looks like the imported Cedar of the 80s Ian mentioned.



And that looks same type as above .