tree/ wood id please

[nev]

can anyone help identify this tree i just felled. (hammer) we thought that it was a beech (found beech shaped leaves and its surrounded by ash and oak) but growth rings seem to suggest a very fast grower, only 20 rings. 2ft at the base, straight to 20ft (17in) and then split to two or three limbs and another 20ft or more.
smoothish choc brown bark in summer from what i remember.
so possibly a softwood?
if its something odd, any good for turning? or is it firewood?

 

[Wood spoiler]

Looks like a birch or a cherry to me as my best bid

 

[mike s]

silver birch maybe?
nice wood, some have trouble turning it but in my experience its been fine.

 

[henton49er]

Looks very like the half dozen silver birch trees I have on my land.

Mike.

 

[Blister]

Is it dogwood ?
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you can tell by it's BARK

Woof Woof :mrgreen:

sorry looks like birch to me as well

 

[Jonzjob]

Looks like silver birch to me too. I used to show Boy Scouts how to strip bits of the bark of to light their fires in the morning at summer camp. It was a bit like knitting fog!

Never tried turning it though?

 

[mike s]

blister thats the worst iv heard this year lol

 

[yellowbelly]

Poplar-pointed leaves similar to beech in summer
Silver Birch usually the bark peels no sign of that in the photo

 

[coille]

Poplar-pointed leaves similar to beech in summer
Silver Birch usually the bark peels no sign of that in the photo

a poplar gets my vote too, probably aspen to be precise - I have hundreds of them growing in my wood - they sucker all over the place and shoot up in no time. Wood is pants though, unless you own a match factory.

Pat

 

[cambournepete]

...I have hundreds of them growing in my wood...

That's the best drive by gloat I've read on here in 7 years

 

[coille]

...I have hundreds of them growing in my wood...

That's the best drive by gloat I've read on here in 7 years

oops, sorry I didnt mean it to be its not so idyllic as it sounds, honest - I planted a small wood 18 years ago on the few acres around our house which used to be a farm, mostly for shelter from the wind - its real wild weather out in the sticks here - but maybe one day something will be big enough to use for making something, if I last another 20 years! Most of the trees are still only 4 to 8 inch diameter saplings. There were a few dozen aspen planted and most of them have muitliplied by 10 or 20 into every spare adjacent space including growing up through the middle of other perfectly good trees like cherry, ash and oak. Left to their own devices I should say they would take over and colonize the whole wood. So I have to cut them out every so often and the timber is really poor. You are lucky if 1 whole tree thinning fills a wheel barrow. It gets burnt on our wood boiler but its a poor fuel too.

Pat

 

[yellowbelly]

we had several growing close to home,also on a farm, they were felled due to the roots spreading under the foundations a distance of approx 30' away

 

[coille]

we had several growing close to home,also on a farm, they were felled due to the roots spreading under the foundations a distance of approx 30' away

that would make sense - You can see lines of them marching off 30 foot from the original parent tree in several directions - they send long sucker roots out just under the surface and throw up saplings every spring like weeds, showing where the roots are going.

Nev - use the timber if you fancy, but it will be coarse, low grade stuff to finish, especially if its young wood from saplings. Its only good properties seem to be fairly high resistance to fracturing when bent (hence match wood) - so maybe you can experiment with some thin stuff and see what happens.

Pat

 

[nev]

Poplar-pointed leaves similar to beech in summer
Silver Birch usually the bark peels no sign of that in the photo

Yep, just looked it up and i'd go for grey poplar.
cut and split a log and turned a (wet) 8" blank today and it looks quite nice, huge grain, but dont know what it will be like when dry.

so the turning verdict for POPLAR, not good then?
so its for burning or making a canoe then - i've still got a 20ft x 2ft straight trunk to cut up

 

[DougieH]

Hi, I had two 70ft poplars taken down, at the bottom of my garden, your wood looks like silver birch to me, but I have turned a bit of my poplar firewood. It looks vey rough after turning, but it sands really well. This is a photo of one of my first turnings as poplar was all I had in my woodpile. Have got a bit of spalted poplar I will have to have a go at now that I know which end of the skew to hold.

Hope this helps.

Doug

 

[Jonzjob]

I stand corrected, but I think that I reckognise the Record bars? Apart from the ones that sell beer here they are my favorite!! 8)

 

[nev]

I stand corrected, but I think that I reckognise the Record bars? Apart from the ones that sell beer here they are my favorite!! 8)

indeed it is a record, a cl2 36 x18 (but the previous owner chopped the bed bars so it would fit in his shed :shock: so now its more like a 28 x 18 ) i inherited around christmas time.
always wanted a lathe and now ive got one \/ and spend far too much time in the shed

 

[nev]

Poplar-pointed leaves similar to beech in summer
Silver Birch usually the bark peels no sign of that in the photo

Yep, just looked it up and i'd go for grey poplar.
cut and split a log and turned a (wet) 8" blank today and it looks quite nice, huge grain, but dont know what it will be like when dry.

so the turning verdict for POPLAR, not good then?
so its for burning or making a canoe then - i've still got a 20ft x 2ft straight trunk to cut up

ITS TURNING RED! :shock:
whatever it is, it is easy to turn wet but it does produce a lot of 'milk'!
took the largest blank yesterday and roughed out a bowl,

grain looks quite nice, but when i looked today the other blank and offcuts are now a very dark pink,way past the pink of fresh ash almost on the way to yew colouring .
oh yes , when working it ,it also makes your fingers and tools black, like youve been working with coal!

dont know if that confirms it to be poplar or not? a neighbour suggested some kind of cherry? but there were never any fruits of any kind as far as i can remember.