Mystery Wood - new wood source?

I'm surprised no-one else picked it - it's fruitwood.

Greg






























<G>

I would say it's probably maple or birch. Hard to believe that they would
use real cherry. Another possibility is beech. I've got about 800 bf of
beech that was cut off of my property and the grain pattern is surprisingly
similar to maple. It also has a wide range of color from mahogany color to
white/blond like ash to a medium chocolate color like pecan. The resolution
on the photo was not high enough but if it has little brown flecks in the
grain then I would lean towards beech.

Jswee

Dan, at first glace the pic with the flash makes the wood look like
ceder but I doubt that's correct. The image without the flash appears
to look like a variety of woods i.e. juniper, ash, pine, and possibly
oak. How hard does the wood feel to you? Hardness will be a good clue
to narrow down the possibilities.

Mike

[email protected] (Dan) wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> Hi there, the wife and I were at one of these scratch and dent
> furniture warehouses, and I saw a bunch of table tops stacked in a
> corner, I asked and they were going for $40 each. Well I found one
> that was two 34"x44" sections with 2 15" leafs, plus a bunch of the
> support/trim pieces. It was definatly solid wood, but had some pretty
> thick cherry stain on it, so I couldn't exactly tell what it was, but
> I went ahead and got it, figuring it was a steal just for the wood.
>
> Got it home, unscrewed all the hardware and trim pieces, took the belt
> sander to a piece, and here's what it looks like:
> http://home.houston.rr.com/dmcneal/wood.jpg
> The flash made it look redder than in real life, the bottom pic is
> without the flash and pretty close to the true color of the wood.
>
> I'm no wood expert, and I'm pretty new to woodworking, I've only
> worked with Red Oak, Poplar, and Mahogany before. I'm pretty sure
> it's not cherry, I'm thinking alder or maybe ash, any expert opinions?
>
> Anyway, this stuff is about 15/16" material, and I was planning on
> using it for the face frame and raised panel doors for a computer
> armoire I'm building out of birch ply. Any catches to look out for?
> The whole thing will be stained, so I think I can get the woods to
> match. Anyone ever make doors thicker than 3/4"? I don't have a
> planer, so I'm planning just to use it as is after it's stripped and
> sanded. I'll just have to custom do the rails and stiles, which I was
> planning on anyway because I don't have a heafty enough router, and
> don't want to shell out the bucks for an expensive rail/stile bit set
> anyway.

<the grain is nowhere *nearly* open enough to be ash or any type of
oak.>

Many oaks do not have an open grain. Look at white oak for instance.
Very tight grain. I agree with everything else you said though such as
the wood being birch or possibly cherry (after completing the lye
test).

[email protected] (Dan) wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
snip
Anyone ever make doors thicker than 3/4"? I don't have a
> planer, so I'm planning just to use it as is after it's stripped and
> sanded. I'll just have to custom do the rails and stiles, which I was
> planning on anyway because I don't have a heafty enough router, and
> don't want to shell out the bucks for an expensive rail/stile bit set
> anyway.

snip

Hello Dan:

A suggestion here on your doors. Since you do not have the tools you
need or feel comfortable with to make a raised door, why make a raised
door? We used to take 3/4" or 7/8" wood and make what they called
"half lapped" doors.

Figure out the size of your opening based on the width of your doors.
If your doors are 14' wide (based on your material availability and
design), then make your openings on your rails and stiles 1" smaller.
Use your router (any peewee router will do this) to cut a 3/8" deep
groove 3/8" into the doors all around. Soing this will give you a
dado 3/8"X 3/8" all four edges. Now the door will sit in the openings
for them, but stop at the end of the dado.

The crucial part is to find the correct hinge for this; HD carries
them here, but Lowe's does not. Acme hardware here also carries them.

Your hinge will fit in this dado to attach to the door as they are
made to sit in the 3/8x3/8 dado. The other side will face mount on
the stile. The correct spacing will be easy to get in the opening
since you can put reference marks on the rails and stiles to center
the door up.

Be sure to use a roundover bit on the door fronts before installing,
and you are finished with these doors and installation in a flash. No
tear out, no nasty behavior from an unknown species of wood, and best
of all it can all be easily done with very basic tools.

You might look around for any older cabinets that are not raised
panel; many of these, especially the houses we remodel from the 50's,
and early 60's have this style of door and hinge for you to study.
Many of these cabinets were actually 'site built' using only hand
tools.

As far as the wood goes... from a picture I think it is anybody's
guess, some probably better than others.

Good luck!

Robert

Tough to tell with out a better picture but considering the source and price
I'd lean towards rubber wood rather then a domestic hardwood.

--
Mike G.
[email protected]
Heirloom Woods
www.heirloom-woods.net
"Dan" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Hi there, the wife and I were at one of these scratch and dent
> furniture warehouses, and I saw a bunch of table tops stacked in a
> corner, I asked and they were going for $40 each. Well I found one
> that was two 34"x44" sections with 2 15" leafs, plus a bunch of the
> support/trim pieces. It was definatly solid wood, but had some pretty
> thick cherry stain on it, so I couldn't exactly tell what it was, but
> I went ahead and got it, figuring it was a steal just for the wood.
>
> Got it home, unscrewed all the hardware and trim pieces, took the belt
> sander to a piece, and here's what it looks like:
> http://home.houston.rr.com/dmcneal/wood.jpg
> The flash made it look redder than in real life, the bottom pic is
> without the flash and pretty close to the true color of the wood.
>
> I'm no wood expert, and I'm pretty new to woodworking, I've only
> worked with Red Oak, Poplar, and Mahogany before. I'm pretty sure
> it's not cherry, I'm thinking alder or maybe ash, any expert opinions?
>
> Anyway, this stuff is about 15/16" material, and I was planning on
> using it for the face frame and raised panel doors for a computer
> armoire I'm building out of birch ply. Any catches to look out for?
> The whole thing will be stained, so I think I can get the woods to
> match. Anyone ever make doors thicker than 3/4"? I don't have a
> planer, so I'm planning just to use it as is after it's stripped and
> sanded. I'll just have to custom do the rails and stiles, which I was
> planning on anyway because I don't have a heafty enough router, and
> don't want to shell out the bucks for an expensive rail/stile bit set
> anyway.

In article <[email protected]>, [email protected] (Basspro*) wrote:
><the grain is nowhere *nearly* open enough to be ash or any type of
>oak.>
>
>Many oaks do not have an open grain. Look at white oak for instance.
>Very tight grain. I agree with everything else you said though such as
>the wood being birch or possibly cherry (after completing the lye
>test).

Perhaps "open" was a poor choice of words; maybe "coarse" would have been more
appropriate. In any event, the wood in the picture doesn't have even the
_remotest_hint_ of similarity to *any* type of oak or ash.

--
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

How come we choose from just two people to run for president and 50 for Miss America?

In article <[email protected]>, [email protected] (Dan) wrote:
>Hi there, the wife and I were at one of these scratch and dent
>furniture warehouses, and I saw a bunch of table tops stacked in a
>corner, I asked and they were going for $40 each. Well I found one
>that was two 34"x44" sections with 2 15" leafs, plus a bunch of the
>support/trim pieces. It was definatly solid wood, but had some pretty
>thick cherry stain on it, so I couldn't exactly tell what it was, but
>I went ahead and got it, figuring it was a steal just for the wood.
>
>Got it home, unscrewed all the hardware and trim pieces, took the belt
>sander to a piece, and here's what it looks like:
>http://home.houston.rr.com/dmcneal/wood.jpg
>The flash made it look redder than in real life, the bottom pic is
>without the flash and pretty close to the true color of the wood.
>
>I'm no wood expert, and I'm pretty new to woodworking, I've only
>worked with Red Oak, Poplar, and Mahogany before. I'm pretty sure
>it's not cherry, I'm thinking alder or maybe ash, any expert opinions?

It is definitely *not* ash.

Actually, my first thought is cherry. Could be birch, too, I suppose -- kinda
hard to tell from a photo. One test you could try: mix up a weak solution of
lye (1 teaspoon of Red Devil lye from the hardware store in a pint of water)
and wipe a bit of it on a corner of the board. If it turns a deep red-brown
within a few seconds, it's cherry.
>
>Anyway, this stuff is about 15/16" material, and I was planning on
>using it for the face frame and raised panel doors for a computer
>armoire I'm building out of birch ply. Any catches to look out for?

Yeah - the grain in the piece in the photo isn't straight enough to use for
door frames. It's likely to twist, and rack the doors. I hope the rest of the
pieces have straighter grain. Anyway, you should select the pieces with the
straightest grain for your door frames and face frames.

--
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

How come we choose from just two people to run for president and 50 for Miss America?

I vote for alder. If so it is lighter (weight) and softer than poplar. It
is not ash.

--
Alan Bierbaum

Web Site: http://www.calanb.com
Recent Project Page: http://www.calanb.com/recent.html
Workbench project: http://www.calanb.com/wbench.html


"Dan" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Hi there, the wife and I were at one of these scratch and dent
> furniture warehouses, and I saw a bunch of table tops stacked in a
> corner, I asked and they were going for $40 each. Well I found one
> that was two 34"x44" sections with 2 15" leafs, plus a bunch of the
> support/trim pieces. It was definatly solid wood, but had some pretty
> thick cherry stain on it, so I couldn't exactly tell what it was, but
> I went ahead and got it, figuring it was a steal just for the wood.
>
> Got it home, unscrewed all the hardware and trim pieces, took the belt
> sander to a piece, and here's what it looks like:
> http://home.houston.rr.com/dmcneal/wood.jpg
> The flash made it look redder than in real life, the bottom pic is
> without the flash and pretty close to the true color of the wood.
>
> I'm no wood expert, and I'm pretty new to woodworking, I've only
> worked with Red Oak, Poplar, and Mahogany before. I'm pretty sure
> it's not cherry, I'm thinking alder or maybe ash, any expert opinions?
>
> Anyway, this stuff is about 15/16" material, and I was planning on
> using it for the face frame and raised panel doors for a computer
> armoire I'm building out of birch ply. Any catches to look out for?
> The whole thing will be stained, so I think I can get the woods to
> match. Anyone ever make doors thicker than 3/4"? I don't have a
> planer, so I'm planning just to use it as is after it's stripped and
> sanded. I'll just have to custom do the rails and stiles, which I was
> planning on anyway because I don't have a heafty enough router, and
> don't want to shell out the bucks for an expensive rail/stile bit set
> anyway.

Ok here are the results of the lye...well I actually couldn't find
just lye at the Walmart, HD, or Ace Hardware stores around here, so I
settled for some Liquid Drain Cleaner that had only Sodium Hydroxide
listed under the "Contains" warning. Anyway here's what happened:
http://home.houston.rr.com/dmcneal/lyetest1.jpg

Looks like it may be cherry after all!!! After the fingernail test,
it's just about as hard as oak, maybe a touch softer, pretty much the
same as mahogany, but not nearly as soft as poplar, much less pine.

I went ahead and tried the same thing on some other scraps, here are
those for reference:
http://home.houston.rr.com/dmcneal/lyetest2.jpg

This is Birch Ply, ?Cherry?, Red Oak, and Mahogany. These were taken
about an hour after the lye treatment. Seems to of just turned the
Birch and Oak greyer, and the Mahogany much darker...kind of cool, but
I really liked the look of the mystery wood, maybe I don't want to
stain it after all. Any tips on making birch plywood match cherry?

>
> A suggestion here on your doors. Since you do not have the tools you
> need or feel comfortable with to make a raised door, why make a raised
> door? We used to take 3/4" or 7/8" wood and make what they called
> "half lapped" doors.
>
Thanks for the tip...but I really like the look of raised panels, I'm
planning to use the same method as you use to cut coves on the table
saw. I'll run the panels thru at an angle to the blade, raising the
blade just a little bit each time...I'll try it out on some scrap to
see how it turns out. I almost went ahead and used this as an excuse
for a bigger router (the Hitachi 3 1/4 HP for $159 at Amazon sure
looked tempting), but then I would have to spend at least another $150
on the proper bits, and I would be stuck with only 1 style of bit.
I'll try this method and see how it turns out, still haven't completly
ruled out buying more tools (isn't that always a good thing?)

P.S. Any more thoughts on the wood after the lye treatment? Somehow
that reply got listed up near the top...I'm using google for this.

[email protected] (Basspro*) wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> Dan, at first glace the pic with the flash makes the wood look like
> ceder but I doubt that's correct. The image without the flash appears
> to look like a variety of woods i.e. juniper, ash, pine, and possibly
> oak. How hard does the wood feel to you? Hardness will be a good clue
> to narrow down the possibilities.
>
>

Dude. seriously. how could you possibly look at that board and think
oak or ash? my money is on cherry. i'll be anxiously awaiting the
outcome.

[email protected] (Doug Miller) wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
>
> It is definitely *not* ash.

Right. Ash is close enough to oak you can mix them and most folks
won't notice.

It looks like maple to me, could be birch. To my eye the grain in
maple and cherry is very similar, it's the color that sets them apart.

>
> Actually, my first thought is cherry. Could be birch, too, I suppose -- kinda
> hard to tell from a photo. One test you could try: mix up a weak solution of
> lye (1 teaspoon of Red Devil lye from the hardware store in a pint of water)
> and wipe a bit of it on a corner of the board. If it turns a deep red-brown
> within a few seconds, it's cherry.

IME sugar maple turns sort of olive with the lye treatment.

--

FF

In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] says...
> <the grain is nowhere *nearly* open enough to be ash or any type of
> oak.>
>
> Many oaks do not have an open grain. Look at white oak for instance.
> Very tight grain. I agree with everything else you said though such as
> the wood being birch or possibly cherry (after completing the lye
> test).
>


Is it possibly an import? I have a kitchen table that is solid wood
that looks similar to the wood shown that is an import from the far
East.

In article <[email protected]>, [email protected] (Basspro*) wrote:
>Dan, at first glace the pic with the flash makes the wood look like
>ceder but I doubt that's correct. The image without the flash appears
>to look like a variety of woods i.e. juniper, ash, pine, and possibly
>oak. How hard does the wood feel to you? Hardness will be a good clue
>to narrow down the possibilities.
>
>Mike

Naaah. Color is all wrong for juniper, pattern is all wrong for pine, and the
grain is nowhere *nearly* open enough to be ash or any type of oak.

This is clearly a close-grained wood. Possibly cherry, birch, or maple,
possibly something else altogether -- but definitely not ash or oak.
>
>[email protected] (Dan) wrote in message
> news:<[email protected]>...
>> Hi there, the wife and I were at one of these scratch and dent
>> furniture warehouses, and I saw a bunch of table tops stacked in a
>> corner, I asked and they were going for $40 each. Well I found one
>> that was two 34"x44" sections with 2 15" leafs, plus a bunch of the
>> support/trim pieces. It was definatly solid wood, but had some pretty
>> thick cherry stain on it, so I couldn't exactly tell what it was, but
>> I went ahead and got it, figuring it was a steal just for the wood.
>>
>> Got it home, unscrewed all the hardware and trim pieces, took the belt
>> sander to a piece, and here's what it looks like:
>> http://home.houston.rr.com/dmcneal/wood.jpg
>> The flash made it look redder than in real life, the bottom pic is
>> without the flash and pretty close to the true color of the wood.
>>
>> I'm no wood expert, and I'm pretty new to woodworking, I've only
>> worked with Red Oak, Poplar, and Mahogany before. I'm pretty sure
>> it's not cherry, I'm thinking alder or maybe ash, any expert opinions?
>>
>> Anyway, this stuff is about 15/16" material, and I was planning on
>> using it for the face frame and raised panel doors for a computer
>> armoire I'm building out of birch ply. Any catches to look out for?
>> The whole thing will be stained, so I think I can get the woods to
>> match. Anyone ever make doors thicker than 3/4"? I don't have a
>> planer, so I'm planning just to use it as is after it's stripped and
>> sanded. I'll just have to custom do the rails and stiles, which I was
>> planning on anyway because I don't have a heafty enough router, and
>> don't want to shell out the bucks for an expensive rail/stile bit set
>> anyway.

--
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

How come we choose from just two people to run for president and 50 for Miss America?

In article <[email protected]>, [email protected] (Fred the Red Shirt) wrote:
>
>IME sugar maple turns sort of olive with the lye treatment.
>
Hmmm.... never tried that. Could have interesting ornamental uses, I suppose.
Thanks for the idea!

--
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

How come we choose from just two people to run for president and 50 for Miss America?

On Fri, 30 Jan 2004 05:37:49 GMT, "Groggy" <[email protected]>
brought forth from the murky depths:

>I'm surprised no-one else picked it - it's fruitwood.

We could tell that immediately...by the guy taking a
freakin' BELT SANDUH to it.

"Finesse" it ain't.


----------------------------------------------
CAUTION: Driver Legally B l o n d (e)
http://www.diversify.com Web Database Development
=======================================================