Author Topic: What species? (Read 12296 times)

longcruise · « **on:** February 23, 2011, 07:53:14 AM »

Of wood that is? Have a blank that I purchased at a gun show. Seller represented it as maple. After looking carefully and cutting it a bit, I;m not so sure. It just does not look like maple. It's very hard.

Any ideas on a test that would prove maple or?

?

whitebear · « **Reply #1 on:** February 23, 2011, 08:01:05 AM »

Pictures?

keweenaw · « **Reply #2 on:** February 23, 2011, 04:24:12 PM »

There are very few other possibilities and the others aren't as hard as maple and will not have curl over much of the piece.

Tom

Lucky R A · « **Reply #3 on:** February 23, 2011, 11:20:17 PM »

I once got a piece of curly Hickory in mistake for Maple. Tough and stringy to carve, stained lighter than maple, but made a nice gun. The unfinished stock looked just like curly maple.

Ron

Telgan · « **Reply #4 on:** February 24, 2011, 12:44:26 AM »

Alost all species can be identified by looking at end grain looking with a magnifying glass. Just find yourself a School of Forestry and turn the Wood Technology students loose on it with thier loops.

longcruise · « **Reply #5 on:** February 24, 2011, 02:37:45 AM »

This piece is fairly straight grained except for the lock area. I would not call the lock area curly so much as gnarly. It was pure heck to work it. Wood is very hard though. Any chance it's beech?

flintriflesmith · « **Reply #6 on:** February 24, 2011, 06:48:11 PM »

The rays in beech are much larger than those in any maple. On the plane sawn surface they will show up as brown colored lens or skinny football shapes.

As TELGAN said, a look at the clean cut end grain under about 10X power loop will identify most woods. Hickory for example has very porous annual rings compared to maple. Birch and maple are harder to tell apart and the trick they taught in wood ID was to wet the sample and smell it--as I recall birch smells like paint or paint thinner.

Gary

longcruise · « **Reply #7 on:** February 24, 2011, 08:58:06 PM »

Gary, thanks for the tips. It's those rays that got me thinking beech. Reminded me of the look of some of the european milsurp stocks. Am going to try the smell test and magnification test. Might also daub a bit of AQ on a scrap piece and see how it colors.

Jim Kibler · « **Reply #8 on:** February 24, 2011, 09:27:05 PM »

As has been suggested, post a picture and your question will surely be answered.

James · « **Reply #9 on:** February 25, 2011, 07:30:50 AM »

Everyone's nose is different, but birch always smells like pepto-bismol to me.

longcruise · « **Reply #10 on:** February 27, 2011, 10:29:39 PM »

Quote

As has been suggested, post a picture and your question will surely be answered

Ok, here are some pics. First pic is of a sample of the stock wood and a small quare of maple. Both of these have had a mild solution of feric nitrate crystals dissolved in water swabbed onto them. Pic #1 is before applying any heat. The stock sample turned gray immideatly upon applying the ferric nitrate solution. The square of maple responded as maple usually does by not taking on any color to speak of with the initial application.

The second pic is after application of heat. The gray stock sample showed no response to heat. The maple of course went to a honey brown as would be expected. In the secon pic there is a dark spot in the center of the maple sample. That was due to a bit more heat than should have been applied. Whoops!

I will also add that the stock wood failed the smell test while the maple sample clearly had the smell of maple. Never would have thought of a smell test without the suggestion on theis board.

It's certain that the stock wood is not maple, but am still not sure what it is!

Jim Kibler · « **Reply #11 on:** February 28, 2011, 04:09:07 AM »

longcruise,

If you show photos of the unstained wood, you will likely get more of an idea as to what it might be.

Jim

longcruise · « **Reply #12 on:** March 01, 2011, 02:18:30 AM »

Here is a pic of the wood grain in the buttstock.

Any ideas? I thought the rays looked more like what might be seen in birch or beech, but my knowledge on this subject is limited.

Daryl · « **Reply #13 on:** March 01, 2011, 02:27:58 AM »

That butt stock picture sure looks like maple to me, Mike.

Dennis Glazener · « **Reply #14 on:** March 01, 2011, 04:00:13 AM »

If that's not maple I have been screwed on some of my blanks!
Dennis

Ed Wenger · « **Reply #15 on:** March 01, 2011, 04:06:15 AM »

I'm with Daryl and Dennis on this one. Sure looks like maple....

Ed

bjmac · « **Reply #16 on:** March 01, 2011, 04:12:23 AM »

looks exactly like the beech that I'm working with now.
BJ

woodsrunner · « **Reply #17 on:** March 01, 2011, 04:29:17 AM »

If Prof Hamilton had put that piece of wood on the table for a test in our wood tech course, everyone would have called it Maple. I see too many characteristics for it to be anything else. At least that's my opinion based on the last photo.

Jim Kibler · « **Reply #18 on:** March 01, 2011, 04:36:34 AM »

Another vote for maple.

D. Bowman · « **Reply #19 on:** March 01, 2011, 05:33:14 AM »

Another vote for maple.

BrentD · « **Reply #20 on:** March 01, 2011, 05:39:37 AM »

Could be a lot of things. I have cherry that looks like that as well. So much easier to tell if you had some finish on it, or maybe wet it with mineral spirits for a photo.

Brent

longcruise · « **Reply #21 on:** March 01, 2011, 06:43:17 AM »

Been messing around with this stock for quite a few months now and had supposed maple all along too. But, go back to my first photos at the beginning of this thread and look at the gray black color on the scrap piece. This turned gray black like this instantly upon applying the ferric nitrate solution. The piece of maple, on the other hand needed to be heated to get the brown color you see.

I once applied some ferric nitrate to a beech milsurp stock to see what the results might be and it did not color the wood at all. Not even with heat.

On the bright side, my grandson who will be shooting this little gun could care less what kind of wood it is!

James · « **Reply #22 on:** March 01, 2011, 03:12:26 PM »

By the detail of grain on the comb, maple

Dennis Glazener · « **Reply #23 on:** March 01, 2011, 04:32:24 PM »

Quote

Been messing around with this stock for quite a few months now and had supposed maple all along too. But, go back to my first photos at the beginning of this thread and look at the gray black color on the scrap piece. This turned gray black like this instantly upon applying the ferric nitrate solution. The piece of maple, on the other hand needed to be heated to get the brown color you see.

I have had some maple that turned about that color when I applied aqa fortis then turn brown after heating with a heat gun. One thing it didn't take me long to learn was to test aqa fortis on a piece of the same wood as the finished product in order to know what color it would end up. I have used aqa fortis on two different pieces of maple and have each one end up a completely different color than the other. I assume it has to do with the type soils each were grown in.
Dennis

James · « **Reply #24 on:** March 01, 2011, 05:59:01 PM »

as well as many "species " or varieties of so called hard maple and each is a little harder or varies some from the common Acer saccharum. In addition to variations simply caused by the spot upon which they stood.

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Author Topic: What species? (Read 12296 times)

keweenaw

Daryl

D. Bowman