What type of chestnut is this?

[julianf]

I bought a couple of slabs of "chestnut" on a whim.

I now realise there are different types of chestnut.

Can anyone advise as to what this is, and, more importantly, what it will finish up like?

I think that the black specking (looks like abrasion) is somthing to do with the wood itself - ie I don't feel as if it will sand out bit runs through the slab. Maybe, maybe not.

Anyway, photo below -

 

[Woody2Shoes]

It's not easy to tell, but it definitely doesn't look like sweet chestnut castanea sativa, which is the most useful timber - if a bit bland.
The only other kind of chestnut I'm aware of that is grown much here in the UK is horse chestnut aesculus hippocastanum - which yours could well be. I don't think the timber is particularly useful for anything much - maybe turning blanks?
PS your photo looks odd!

 

[julianf]

I need to load it on the cnc machine when dry, and cut parts out of it. I need the width of the slab for some of the parts, which was my interest in the specific slab. Why is it that you say its not particularly useful? I sanded up a bit of it, and the grain, although not especially novel, is nicely flowing. If its structurally stable when dry, then is your "warning" just cosmetics?

...and now im wondering whats wrong with the photo too! : )

 

[Doug B]

This gate is Sweet Chestnut, it can have some interesting marking in it so I wouldn’t rule it out as being that

 

[Jacob]

Horse chestnut bears no resemblance to Sweet chestnut. It produce very wide boards of easily workable but rather plain timber and was used a lot as a utility timber like poplar, though it's nicer looking then poplar.
You find it in all sorts of odd places - windsor chair bottoms for instance, on 'economy' versions.

 

[Sean Hellman]

Looks like Sweet Chestnut to me, but difficult to tell from this photo. If you put a small bit of wire wool on it and wet it, the wood will turn black.

 

[julianf]

Ive been reading more about horse chestnut, if this is what i have.

It seems to have negative press, as outlined in the first response on this thread, but i cant entirely see why.

Issues I've detected are -

low density (i don't know if this relates to strength, or just weight?)
porosity, and low resistance to decay

and then reports of it being too soft to finish well and of poor figure, but then other reports of it being cut for veneer - these two seem in absolute contradiction to one another!

we have a laundry / boiler / hot water tank "room" here (room makes it sound way more impressive than the cupboard that it is...) - anyway, its a constant 30c in there, so ive lent them up against the wall, making sure the dryer door still mostly opens, and ill see what becomes of it.

 

[eribaMotters]

I machined some chestnut up last year for shelving in a small bookcase. It does not look like the gate above, more like a bland Oak, similar to the original photo and I'm guessing Horse Chestnut.
I like Jacob also heard it was used as a cheap alternative to Oak in post war Utility Furniture. This would tie in with what mine looks like.

Colin

 

[custard]

Horse Chestnut is pretty rubbish, it's very weak and has this stringy, woolly texture that makes it difficult to work. Unlike Poplar it doesn't even take paint very well, often becoming furry.

It is however increasingly useful as a substitute for Holly. Brilliant white Holly is almost impossible to find anymore in this country, a lot of people say that's because of global warming, however I've got family connections in the Canadian timber trade and really white Holly is also becoming hard to find there too, even amidst British Columbian and Yukon winters.

Anyhow, Horse Chestnut is used in veneer form for grainless, plain white features in marquetry, and for all the inlay applications that traditionally used Holly.

Sweet Chestnut conversely is a terrific timber.

It has pretty much all the virtues of Oak but is quite a bit cheaper. In traditional rural furniture, and in the Arts & Crafts tradition, Sweet Chestnut is used for the secondary components such as backs and drawer sides, when Oak is the primary timber. In my opinion the two timbers look very handsome together.

It's often planted alongside Oak because even though both species grow at about the same rate, Sweet Chestnut has a much thinner sapwood band. Consequently you can harvest Sweet Chestnut quite a bit sooner than Oak, so you can get a bit of revenue a decade earlier than the main Oak harvest.

 

[Deadeye]

I bought a couple of slabs of "chestnut" on a whim.

I now realise there are different types of chestnut.

Can anyone advise as to what this is, and, more importantly, what it will finish up like?

I think that the black specking (looks like abrasion) is somthing to do with the wood itself - ie I don't feel as if it will sand out bit runs through the slab. Maybe, maybe not.

Anyway, photo belo

Horse chestnut as a kid: brittle, prone to rot = bad to climb on; soft, low density = good for toy boats

Horse chestnut as an adult: brittle, prone to rot, soft, low density = not much use for anything really

 

[Woody2Shoes]

One of the reasons I think it's horse not sweet is the apparent rot that seems to have been happening under the bark. Sweet is full of tannin and resistant to rot, like oak. One test you could try is to wet a bit and rub a bit of iron wool on it. If you immediately start to get a lot of back staining it's more likely to be sweet - but I expect you won't!

 

[Woody2Shoes]

Looking again at the rot, the tree could have been killed by honey fungus - again, horse would be arguably more susceptible to that, although it kills oak pretty efficiently too.

 

[RobinBHM]

I haven't seen chestnut fence posts for years, do they still pollard chestnut for round fence posts.

Sweet chestnut is a ring porous timber, quite similar to oak really, but whiter and no rays.

 

[julianf]

To be honest, I still don't feel that the photo below is conclusive.

I used a bit of wetter fresh wire wool, and then vigorously rubbed down the area after to try and remove any trace of wire wool, but I'm not wholly convinced that the staining isn't just residual wire wool.

 

[julianf]

I made an attempt with my blunt, rusty plane, and my limited skill and got the results below.

The grain is much more swirling than i initially thought, and, if this means anything?

Anyway, photos below for someone who knows more than me!

Thank you!

and this bit un-planed on the left with a tiny strip shaved on the right -

 

[RobinBHM]

The grain looks like sweet chestnut to me.

 

[julianf]

This stock photo off the web looks very much like what i have -

The darker flecking of the grain (dont know the correct term) is basically what i can see on the board i have.

The photos of horse chestnut grain look much flatter -

...however these could obviously just be individual photos, and not that representative.

 

[Jacob]

Hate to say it but what you've bought looks like firewood to me. But have a bash at it, you never know!
That photo above is representative - it's fairly featureless but could be obtained (in the old days) in wide clear boards which can make it useful. Creamy colour to pale pink. Easy to work.
It was used - I've found it in old chapel furniture and once as a windsor chair bottom.
Sweet chestnut is very different - more like oak.

 

[Woody2Shoes]

I haven't seen chestnut fence posts for years, do they still pollard chestnut for round fence posts.

Sweet chestnut is a ring porous timber, quite similar to oak really, but whiter and no rays.

It's not really pollarding, but coppicing. I cut about an acre of it just before Christmas and plan to use the pieces for fencing. To be honest, I've never seen sweet chestnut timber with a board width of more than about 8 inches - because it's all coppiced round here.
Like this: Stock Photo - Sweet Chestnut Coppicing Woodland Management

Of course there are a few ornamental specimens and some neglected areas of 'overstood' chestnut coppice which would yield wider boards. I've seen some very beautiful specimens which are probably more than 250 years old in Petworth Park and at Mottisfont Abbey. Mature trees usually tend to have a 'spiral' pattern to the bark: Stock Photo - Sweet Chestnut (Castanea sativa). Trunk of mature tree showing spiral fissures. Spring, Norfolk

 

[Woody2Shoes]

I made an attempt with my blunt, rusty plane, and my limited skill and got the results below.

The grain is much more swirling than i initially thought, and, if this means anything?

Anyway, photos below for someone who knows more than me!

Thank you!


View attachment 102564View attachment 102565View attachment 102566

and this bit un-planed on the left with a tiny strip shaved on the right -

View attachment 102567

I think these are much better photos and I think it could well be a (rather tired!) bit of sweet chestnut.
The yellow under the brown is where the (usually very thin region of) sapwood has started to to succumb to fungal attack.