Wood ID Help

[Matthew Brady]

Hey all,

Im trying to ID the wood species used in my mom's kitchen table. It was her mother's aunt's table and was built in the late 1800s or early 1900s. I'm going to be making little risers for the bottom and would like to make it out of the same wood if possible. I think it may be chestnut which I know is impossible to find. If it is chestnut, I was thinking using cherry or mahogany for it. Positive ID and suggestions for what wood to use if it is chestunt would be awesome. Thanks! http://imgur.com/a/8w0ZP

[dan petroski]

Hey all,

Im trying to ID the wood species used in my mom's kitchen table. It was her mother's aunt's table and was built in the late 1800s or early 1900s. I'm going to be making little risers for the bottom and would like to make it out of the same wood if possible. I think it may be chestnut which I know is impossible to find. If it is chestnut, I was thinking using cherry or mahogany for it. Positive ID and suggestions for what wood to use if it is chestunt would be awesome. Thanks! http://imgur.com/a/8w0ZP

I would venture a guess at walnut or butternut. Dan

[Erik Loza]

Walnut was my first thought.

Erik

[Bill Orbine]

Walnut and butternut are good guesses but Elm is a possibility with the table being very old.

[John K Jordan]

Matthew,

It is quite difficult or impossible to consistently identify wood by a photograph of the figure. It is easy to be fooled by the color since 1) it could have been stained, and 2) old wood gets dark. Ask 10 people and you might get 10 opinions. Which one, if any, is right?

It is much easier to identify wood by examining a cross-section with a magnifier as described by R. Bruce Hoadley in his book "Identifying Wood" and on various web sites. I make a hobby of examining known species and have occasionally identified an unknown wood. I usually use a small block with end grain maybe 1" long by 1/4"-12" or so wide. In an existing piece this requires finding and chipping out some part that would not be noticeable. The end grain is carefully shaved with a razor blade to show the rings and pores cleanly. I use a low-power stereo microscope but a 10x lens works very well. Some species such as elm, oak, walnut, etc. are so distinctive when viewed like this that they can't easily be mistaken.

The US government will identify up to 5 samples a year for citizens. You can see the details here:
http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/research/ce...dfactsheet.php

We have sent samples in the past. They are not real fast but they are good.

Note that even if you ID the old wood exactly, new wood of the same species will probably not match acceptably but may have to be stained to darken to match.

JKJ

[Matthew Brady]

Thanks for the help. John, I know that end grain is what is needed to identify it, which why I had posted the picture of the bottom of the leg. Unfortunately, it did not turn out as well as I had hoped lol.

[John K Jordan]

It is not easy or perhaps even possible to examine the end grain effectively without shaving a tiny section with a razor. The section can be very small since it is viewed with a magnifier. (All you need is a 10x lens.)

Here is an example. I take pictures like this by holding a camera up to the eyepiece of a low-power microscope. This is elm, as seen by the distinctive wavy bands of latewood pores.

wood-elm.jpg

JKJ