Hardwood identification.

Hello all,

Recently I bought some mysteriously titled "Red Hardwood" to renovate a garden bench. Does anyone have any idea what it might be?!

Small block, oiled:

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Unfinished:

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Thanks,

David Paste.

Reply to
pastedavid
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Apitong?

basilisk

Reply to
basilisk

So hard to narrow it down to one, but it looks like Mahogany to me.

Reply to
-MIKE-

Afzelia is a possibility. Your pics look a lot like what I have. Mine is redder than the sample shown here:

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Art

Reply to
Artemus

--------------------------------------------------------- African Mahogany, especiallly if it is difficult to finish.

Lew

Reply to
Lew Hodgett

...

Particularly the unfinished looks as it could possibly be luaun or similar.

How were the samples surfaced? What if you sand the unoiled sample?

Reply to
dpb

I would also vote for apitong. I immediately thought of that after looking at the sample picture.

I used apitong to build a sling cluch and chair plus corner table some

30 years ago. The wood is extremely hard and I mean hard. When finished it is beautiful.

The common usage for apitong at that time was for the planking in semi truck trailer beds. It was considered far more rugged than oak for that purpose. I have never checked to see if apitong is still relatively available or not. I also do not know if its use in truck beds persists to this day or not.

Reply to
Michael Karas

It is still used for truck beds, but in recent years it is usually a glued up piece instead of solid full lenght stock.

Another use for Apitong was lumber stickers.

basilisk

Reply to
basilisk

It could be a hardwood called lyptus that comes from South America.

Lyptus is extremely hard and very close in appearance to cherry.

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It is VERY difficult to determine a species from a photo.

Reply to
Pat Barber

Looks mahogany-ish. I would need to see how it sands and how hard it is. Isn't orange enough to be african mahog I don't think. The piece with the ruler shows some "banding" in the color. If it has lots of bands of color it could be Sepele.

Reply to
SonomaProducts.com

Hello again! I managed to get in touch with the timber yard today, and they said (this was over the phone, so they couldn't be precise) that it was either Sapele or Meranti (AKA Shorea, AKA Lauan).

So there we go!

Thank you all for your input - gratefully recieved!

Reply to
pastedavid

Cool. Because of the banding and the color I would venture to say it is Sap ele, as I indicated before. It looses its redness as soon as you put any fi nish and goes brown so if you like that reddish color you should tone it wi th some dye before hitting it with shellac, lacquer, poly, etc. if you ever want to do a finished project.

Reply to
SonomaProducts.com

Hi, I finished it with some straight-forwardly named "finishing oil"

(this stuff:

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and it turned out like this:

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I'm quite happy with how it has turned out, and just in time for summer, too!

Cheers.

Reply to
pastedavid

Looks Great!

Reply to
G. Ross

I'm quite happy with how it has turned out, and just in time for summer, to o! > > Cheers.

Yep, looks great. Good job.

I like gardening and similar outdoor projects. I replaced the slats on a s imilar discarded/salvaged bench, with ER cedar, gave it to my sister, 2-3 y rs ago. I don't recall if I put a finish on it. I'll have to ask her how it's holding up. Yours looks much better, than the one I repaired.

Sonny

Reply to
Sonny

too! > > Cheers.

similar discarded/salvaged bench, with ER cedar, gave it to my sister, 2-3 yrs ago. I don't recall if I put a finish on it. I'll have to ask her ho w it's holding up. Yours looks much better, than the one I repaired.

Thanks chaps! It was a really nice little project - not much more work than running a router along the edges to round them over, and then sanding smoo th, finally oiling, but there's something highly satisfying about parking o ne's arse on it after a long hot day & watching the sky go dark!

Reply to
pastedavid

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