What wood is this?

[Ben Bullock]

I got this wood from a giveaway pile at a lumber yard:

have three big pieces of it, but I have no idea what kind of wood it is.

Any hints?

[Leon]

Looks like Ash.

[Joe Bemier]

At that lumber yard? The sign says -in part:

Tokyo Wood Trade (or Trading) Market

[Woodhead]

where is this lumberyard? My first guess is something like Phillipine Mahogany,

[charlie b]

Look at the picture that shows the bark. Mahogany bark is a lot smoother.

I'm going with ash.

charlie b

[somewildmonkey]

Ben, are you in Tokyo too? :-)

That piece you have in the picture looks really nice, but I'm not sure what it is. I've got a carpenter friend that knows the local woods pretty well so I'll run it by him.

I recently found a lumber yard nearby that has a giveaway bin. Half of my living room is now filled with wood scraps.

[Steve]

Looks like ash to me as well.

--Steve

[Steve]

Phillipine Mahogany looks very much like Honduran (Genuine) mahogany in terms of grain structure and color, but with a coarser grain, lighter weight, and softer. This stuff looks very much like American White Ash.

--Steve

[Toller]

If it is very light, maybe butternut.

[Mark & Juanita]

Having spent the last year working with a lot of ash, I would tend to agree. It's always hard to tell just from pictures of course, and the locale of the poster could also point to something else that looks like Ash.

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

[B A R R Y]

I use a lot of ash, and if that's ash, the white balance is waaaay off on the digicam.

If the white balance is off, it could be ash.

[Leon]

I have ash that varies in color from nearly white to light brown, in the same board.

[B A R R Y]

I haven't personally seen ash _that_ dark, for the entire board.

However, just last week, I was at Barong Imports , a large Asian antique store (he claims to be the largest in US) in Great Barrington, MA, and I saw some wood called "Tamo", or Japanese Ash.

What I saw made of Tamo was of a color similar to unfinished US black walnut, but with a shellac or lacquer finish. When finished it had the strong figure of the Ash I buy here in CT, but kind of the dry cocoa color of lighter, unfinished black walnut.

If the color is correct in the photos, that might be Tamo.

FWIW, he also has 10 foot+, solid stone, Budda, Ganesh, and Lakshmi statues, should you require one.

[Ben Bullock]

Thank you for your very rapid response. A lot of other posters mentioned ash. There is a local variety of ash called "tamo" (Japanese ash; fraxinus mandshurica var. japonica). I took a photo with a home centre plank of ash here:

people think it's the same thing?

[Ben Bullock]

Thank you for the translation. Although it says Tokyo I think that is just part of the name, because it is actually in another place about 60km outside Tokyo.

[Ben Bullock]

The lumberyard is in Tsukuba in Japan, which is near Tokyo. I looked on the lumberyard's web site, and they say that they specialize in a kind of wood called "keyaki", Japanese zelkova; zelkowa serrata. However I have no conviction that this wood is "keyaki" at all.

[Ben Bullock]

Sorry, the photo was taken under a flourescent light, so I think it's a little hard to tell the colours. I have now put some more pictures taken under natural light, e.g.:

[Ben Bullock]

Thanks for the feedback. It might well be tamo since that's a common kind of wood here.

Sounds heavy.

[Ben Bullock]

I'm in Tsukuba which is near Tokyo.

I've put some better natural light photos there now.

That little shack in the photo set is the giveaway place for this lumber yard. There was about a ton of bits of wood in front of it and I picked some nicer looking pieces. I probably should have taken more.

[Doug Miller]

Sure doesn't look like it to me. If the wood had come from the United States, I'd say it was probably some species of elm, or possibly butternut. The grain is right for (American species of) ash, but the color is not. I have no idea what the lumber of native Japanese trees looks like, though, and it may be something altogether different. Your best bet, IMO, is to ask a local Japanese woodworker what it is.