wood id please

[sparkymarky]

hi i bought some hardwood sleepers a few months ago as i am planing to build a workbench (will try to wip if i have time).

the sleepers in question are 5" x 10" by about 2.5m long at a cost of £22 each i though they would make a good cheap source of hardwood.

here is a picture of a re-sawn board one side has vegetable oil rubbed in to show the grain.

any ideas on wood type would be appreciated.

 

[Richard T]

My best guess is Elm. I have come across this before but it's quite rare, round here that is, the majority are the pine cooked in pitch variety.

 

[Jensmith]

I wouldn't have thought it'd be Elm with it being pretty rare. New sleepers are normally Oak but don't know my grain very well...

 

[DOOGYREV]

Looks like Idigbo to me

 

[bosshogg]

Doe's the wood have any particular smell when it's cut ??

 

[sparkymarky]

thanks for the replies, the timber doesnt have any notable smell when cut but as i rarely work with hardwoods i am not quite sure what to be smelling for.
it could well be idigbo but when on google i tried iroko and the grain kind of matches up so i`m thinking it could be that, i cant belive how hard or dense the wood is though a hand plane will hardly touch it. though i use the same plane on air dried oak and i don`t have a problem at all.

 

[9fingers]

Is it Jarrah?

I read somewhere that it is used for sleepers

sample pics here

http://hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/jarrah.htm

Bob

 

[Sawyer]

My best guess is Elm. I have come across this before but it's quite rare, round here that is, the majority are the pine cooked in pitch variety.

Doubt if it's elm. Apart from the rarity in large sizes, elm is not particularly durable and considered a tasty meal by woodboring insects. Apparently, it lasts much better in water.

Looks like one of the exotics to me - not too sure which.

 

[Peter Sefton]

At first glance I would agree with Doogy (Idigbo), but you say it’s very hard so sounds much more like Jarrah to me although it’s a long time since I have used it.
Elm is Durable in water or underground as used traditionally for coffins (3/4” coffin boards). To rot timber has to have both oxygen and moister present for living fungi to attack

 

[bosshogg]

It looks very much like Agba, available in very large dims. The smell I remember when working Agba, as an apprentice Patternmaker, was something of a peppery smell, don't know if it was ever used for sleepers though, that having been said however, It comes from West Africa and Britain had a large presence there. The wood can also be wooly in places

You might try looking here > http://research.ttlchiltern.co.uk/p...ybeta1.1/durability beta 1.1/species/agba.htm ...bosshogg

 

[tekno.mage]

It does *look* like elm from the photos - but as has already been said, elm seems an unlikely wood for railway sleepers, and elm isn't so hard you can't plane it!.

I don't think it looks anything like jarrah, though. I had some jarrah that definitely was from old railway sleepers and it looked nothing like that - even un-oiled the freshly-sawn wood was a very rich dark red/brown colour and the grain structure was quite different. I also had some bits of Australian Red Mahagony from old railway sleepers, which had a similar-looking grain structure to the wood in the pics, but was much pinker in colour. Both these woods were hard to work and very blunting of tools!

 

[Richard T]

When I said that it was rare, I meant rare to be used for sleepers, rather than Elm being now rare due to Elm beetle.

Many moons ago when I was working for the council tree Dpt., we were given the odd job of "felling" a circle of old sleepers set upright in concrete as a play ground surrounding wall/fence. I guess the playground was due for demolition to be replaced with 1980s health and safety rubber bounciness. There were about fifty of them, two were Elm. V. surprising I concede but, nevertheless, there they were.

Mark, if you could get a jack plane (or plane of your choice) sharp enough to cut through time and take the bandsaw marks off - maybe we could have a better gander at the grain? Also note whether said plane encounters Elm - like changes of grain direction...

 

[RogerP]

Obeche? http://www.hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/obeche.htm

 

[bosshogg]

I doubt if it's Obeche Rodger as Obeche is a very lightweight wood, quite whitish in colour...bosshogg

 

[RogerP]

I doubt if it's Obeche Rodger as Obeche is a very lightweight wood, quite whitish in colour...bosshogg

You're probably right. Just that I have some here which looks remarkable like that in Mark's picture. I always thought it was Obeche but as it's reasonably heavy I've probably misidentified it in the first place.

 

[sparkymarky]

thanks for the replies everyone.
ok so i`ve taken another picture, i have scraped back the timber (which it does with relative ease compared to planing), i have also shown the scrapings which seem to be a lot lighter in color compared to the reddish brown of the timber.
another mention on the smell it almost smells like cats pee weird i know but that could be down to it being stored outside for 6 months plus at a agriculture merchants.

all in all though thinking it will make a cracking looking bench.

 

[RogerBoyle]

Burmese teak would be my guess

Roger

 

[andersonec]

Iroko......... It will have a slight yellow/green tinge when cut but will fade to brown after a few weeks, will warp readily when resawn.

Another timber used for sleepers is Masaranduba, dense red coloured timber.

These timbers will take many years in the open without any preservative treatment, infact they will readily reject any which is applied

 

[Guggs]

I would 100% agree with Iroko , When its weathered it goes silvery and with a long grain it can be decieving . Deffo Iroko

 

[BTR]

I would also definately say it is Iroko