A friend worked at the airport and gave this to me. It was confiscated by customs from a South American flight.
Has been ambiently air dried over time. Very hard, very heavy. I can barely make a pin head sized hole by pushing a center push into it with my palm. The piece 41" x 6" x 1-5/8" weighs 13.5lbs.
Rosewood?
How about ipé ?
If it looks like ipe, walks like ipe and quacks like ipe...
How DO I get myself into these things?
twitch, jo4hn
At one time I had a bookmark for a great website that has image samples of just about every species of wood known to man. If anyone has a link like that, pass it on.
This is one .....
sumbich, that might the one.
thanks a lot
That is just intense! What a find, thanks!
Looks like Ipe. Ipe often has a very fine dust that will look green in color, not to be confused with the brownish saw dust. Also if you get a citrus cleaner on the dust it will turn blood red. CMT Formula 2050 blade and bit cleaner will turn the dust blood red as does my sweat sometimes.
I haven't tried that, but the sawdust and burn marks are very purple and pink. It's very similar to Purpleheart...... no, it's not Purpleheart.
Don't rule out Afromosia. I have some Afromosia that looks identical to the color and grain pattern of the smaller piece in the picture. I built a bed out of it years ago. One thing I remember about it was the distinctive taste the sawdust had. I got a good taste of it from the very fine dust that flew when I cut it on the table saw. Dense and very hard.
Thanks to DiggerOp for posting the wood picture i.d. site. Nice site, but the picture of Afromosia is lighter and not as strongly grained as the samples I had.
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====================== Check out afromosia:
On a side note, I read some commentary on that site in which the author complains that digital pics show too much red in their photos, making it difficult to tell what color a wood sample really is.
I'm having the opposite problem, my camera won't show how much red there really is in this wood.
That is very cool. Thanks for that link. My enthusiasm is tempered however, considering that we are already paying for the service.
I think I'll send in a piece of southern yellow pine, to see if they have a sense of humor.
Looks more like bubinga to me; OTOH, most bubinga is African, not S. American.
Thanks, Doug. I've worked with Bubinga and this is quite different.
Then I'm baffled. :-) Pics don't look like anything else that I've ever worked with.
You and I, both. This is kind of fun though. I'm learning a lot about species identification and a lot about how UNreliable web photos on a computer screen can be.
The light seems very yellow or maybe green.
I'm a half-assed photographer but, shooting it on a matte, dark, neutral background in diffuse daylight or using a diffused flash might answer all needs.
I said this without looking at the other pic.
The blowout on the upper right and shadowed edge of the board suggests backlighting. A window?
If it's a window, you might try the suggestions above from the other side, using the window as your light source.
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