Another help with wood identification thread.

[ManowarDave]

Evening all,

The piece of timber in the subsequent pictures was found in the garage when we moved into the house nearly 5 years ago. The old gent who lived here before us loved his gardening and had used the garage as a potting shed. His potting bench was quite unique. The top was a higgledy piggledy layering of old boards, mostly from what looked like old furniture pieces. Most of this was old contiboard, bits of ply and the like but there were a couple of nice pieces of dovetailed oak bookcase pieces and some other gems.

This piece was grey and filthy on the outside and pretty unremarkable but looked to be of a useful size and thickness (approx 16" x 39" x 1 1/4") and got rendered to the bottom of the "I'll take a look at that one day" pile.

Well, for no particular reason that day was today. I took a no4 to it and was quite surprised by a nice reddish chocolate colour. Similarly surprising (for me at least) was that it was a single board. I'd expected it to be at least two or three smaller boards glued together.

Ive been working with some Sapele lately from the old gate I removed from the front of the house last year and first thought was that's what it was. However, when I compared the two the sapele was more orangey and the unidentified slab more brown. The shavings bare up the colour difference too. The grain is similar although that on the slab seems tighter and less porous.

Does anyone else have any thoughts?

The first photo looks lighter than in reality, the others are a better colour match but my phone camera is not the best at color reproduction.

The last photo shows a piece of the sapele held in front. The difference is more pronounced in the flesh.

TIA

Dave

 

[samhay]

One of the African mahoganoids. Perhaps utile. Does it have much of an odour?
https://www.wood-database.com/utile/

 

[Inspector]

Hard to tell from here but could it be Bubinga?

Pete

 

[Ttrees]

Looks like it could be sapelle to me if I were to bet on it, does it smell the same?

End grain shavings are quite fragrant to my nostrils, and you don't have to waste any of it. sapelle smells like carrots and parsnips to me.

It could be iroko, I can't say I've ever noticed such a striking colour variation on the stock I have, although my widest stock is reclaimed door panels with varnish still on.

Looks too red for iroko, if I were to only see the last photo.
It is all that red?, stain penetrates iroko very deep, I would guess up to a half inch in some of the stock I have.

That third photo would be a helpful one to show, if another picture was taken closer.
Then we could see the long grain pores, and with something to show for scale, i.e a matchbox, would make for a better guess.

Sapelle has tighter pores compared to longer deeper pores of iroko,
Have you got any iroko to compare with?
It might be good to see how it reacts with your lighting.
I learned a lesson about CRI (Colour rendering index) when I swapped out the warm coloured florescent bulbs to whiter ones, now my green painted stuff looks horrible.

One could say the colour would match sipo/utile
The small amount of the stuff I've seen has a fleck like beech has on one face.
I'd say that would be the best thing to look for, if it didn't smell the same as the sapelle stick you've got, and bears no resemblance to iroko, if you have some.

Thats my 2 cents
Tom

 

[Keith 66]

It doesnt look like Sapele to me, not stripy enough. I think its just a good african mahogany. I have had tons of similar over the years, mostly out of old furniture. Often it was veneered over with walnut & often in surprisingly big wide bits.

 

[Amateur]

Bubinga

 

[ManowarDave]

Thanks for you input everyone. Now I've just got to have a think about what to make from it.