What wood is this?

[John]

I've recently aquired a piece of board. It's about the width of worktop but is old and made from solid pieces about 7" wide and 30mm thick. I know I'm mixing units here, put it down to age. Anyway, the boards are joined by having groves in both edges and a tongue of what looks like pine inserted. The boards are hardwood, I suspect mahogany. It looks like it was mass produced by machine. The whole piece sands up beautifully but is quite heavy as you would expect. It's now a bath side panel waiting it's finish. I've not seen anything like this before. Anyone know what it's called and used for? I thought of bar or counter tops but the end view with the pine is not particularly attractive.

John

[The Natural Philosopher]

Its probably exactly what you think it is..a hardwood top made by tongue and grooving thinner planks. Might be any one of some tropical hardwoods

- might even be cherry or something.

If there appears to be almost zero banding in the grain, that is generally a sign of a tropical wood with no summer/winter variation in growth. Mahogany - which covers a wide range of species - is typically very smooth grained and somewhat reddish.

[Phil L]

Sounds like 'butchers block' to me, see here:

is obviously a replica, but you get the drift

[John]

Thanks for the replies. Knowing where it came from, I suspect it started as a lab bench top. I suppose that's close to the buthchers block that Phil suggested. I always thought they showed the end grain. It's certainly taking a nice finish. It's a bit of a lump for a bath side but it should outlast me.

John

[Stuart Noble]

Lab benches were often teak