Identifying Resawn Timber

[johnjin]

Hi All
I've had a delivery of old hardwood window frames to reclaim. I have been resawing and squaring up the timber and I have four different species it seems. So I would like to try to identify them. So can anyone tell me what species was used for hardwood door frames and window frames in the past. Maybe up to 100 years ago and even more. This will give me a starting point to look at in my book (Wood Identification and Use by Terry Porter) One species is definitely sapele with which I am quite familiar. Another one is a bit darker than sapele and very sticky to the touch. It is so resinous that it clogs up my bandsaw blade after only cutting about 2 foot through 6 inches thick. My blade is a 3/4 x 2 tpi skip tooth and cleaning it every couple of minutes gets to be quite a chore. Any suggestions very much appreciated.

All the best
John

 

[Scrit]

The hardwood species which come to mind are oak, mahogany and teak, I thought that sapele really only came to the fore in the 1930s and iroko was a post-WWII material when teak became a lot scarcer. Could it be that the sticky stuff you think is hardwood is actually pitch pine? That is the one timber I know for sure will gum up tooling, and at 100 years old or older it will be both fine grained and very dense (read hard as h*ll) not to mention potentially quite dark

Edit: an afterthought, but after WWII (possibly even earlier) there was an attempt to bring in gums and eucalytpus from Australasia - they're gummy, too.

Scrit

 

[les chicken]

We had our windows replaced on the front of the house built in 1936 still the original windows. The fitter moaned how hard the wood was to cut out, they were built with second hand "canadian sapele pine" I think the spelling is correct.

Scrit might be able to shed some light on this type of wood which apparently was popular for windows and doors in the 30s.

Les

 

[orangetlh]

Would keruing have been used for joinery? Thats the stickiest, gumiest timber ive ever worked with

 

[Scrit]

We had our windows replaced on the front of the house built in 1936 still the original windows. The fitter moaned how hard the wood was to cut out, they were built with second hand "canadian sapele pine" I think the spelling is correct.

I've come across parana pine in old doors, which can indeed be a lovely pink hue. I'll have to go and have a dig rounfd in my library to see what I can find

Scrit

 

[JFC]

:-s

canadian sapele pine

 

[johnjin]

Hi
Thanks for very quick replies
This sticky wood is more of a dark mahogany colour. You can see the resin glinting in the light it is so sticky. You only need to put a finger on it to feel it sticking. I looked up Pitch Pine in the book Scrit, but it looks much to light in colour and even allowing for it to darken with age I can't believe it would get as dark as this. But then what do I know. As for Canadian Sapele Pine I have never heard of this wood and can find no reference to this at all. As for Keruing, although it is mentioned in the book there are no details so I shall have to look a little further afield for that one. Anyway thanks so much for your efforts.

All the best

John