Mystery Wood - new wood source?

[Dan]

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:

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]

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.

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?

[Basspro*]

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

[Doug Miller]

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.

Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

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

[Charlie Self]

Correct there. As someone else suggested, try the ly test for cherry. If it's not cherry, odds are excellent it's alder.

Charlie Self "To create man was a quaint and original idea, but to add the sheep was tautology." Mark Twain's Notebook

[Doug Miller]

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?

[Fred the Red Shirt]

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.

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

[Larry Blanchard]

And if you don't want to fool around with lye, alder is a lot softer than cherry - try to dent it with a fingernail.

BTW, I live in the northwest and alder is one of my favorites - but not for horizontal surfaces.

Of course, I could always coat it with epoxy :-).

[RemodGuy]

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.

[Basspro*]

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).

[Mike G]

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.

[Doug Miller]

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?

[Alan Bierbaum]

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

[Jswee]

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]

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:

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:

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?

[Charlie Self]

remodguy states:

Or cedar. My money is on cherry or alder.

Charlie Self "All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure." Mark Twain

[Mark & Juanita]

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.

[Bridger]

maybe red birch.

[Groggy]

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

Greg

[Robert L. Witte]

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