Can anyone ID these logs/limbs wood species?

Can anyone ID these logs/limbs wood species? · 06-28-2009, 05:21 PM

I was picking up some logs/limbs this morning; took a bunch of branches for someone and dumped them in exchange for the "good" pieces. I got some chucks of catalpa for carving that I know are good, but the main thing I got I am not so sure about. Via email, he thought it was a non fruiting pear like Bradford, but it was not. I have seen this stuff around a lot but don't know the name off the top of my head. The shape is bizarre; if I sliced it up and took pictures of successive slices and played it back as an animation, it would look like an amoeba break dancing. I kept pieces that were about as reasonable as it gets. Lots of littles projections out of the bark that aren't quite thorns. Anyway:

I am hoping to make a few bows, or possibly walking staffs. It would make some very kewl staffs; anywhere I rounded it to eliminate a bump out would have some good grain patterns. I have painted the ends.

CarvedTones · 06-28-2009, 06:12 PM

Another update. It is photosensitive and darkening. You can see the "tan line" where I just removed a little more bark at one end (some whas already missing from being cut). The bright white on the end is exterior latex.

CarvedTones · 06-28-2009, 07:07 PM

Sorry for the running monologue, but the clues keep coming...

I had a "well, duh" moment and my money is on cherry. I was out hitting a tennis ball back and forth in the circle with one of my kids when a ball somehow got past me

and rolled to a stop next to a small Yoshino Cherry (ornamental hybrid) in my very own front yard. Not quite twins separated at birth, but extremely close. Mine isn't as misshapen as the logs and limbs but it's much younger and does have flat spots, bulges and "fat Ys" where branches are. The bark is almost dentical; mine has fewer of the rough protrusions, but it does have them. The leaves are pretty much dead on. I am not sure it is Yoshino, but almost definitely closely related if not.

CarvedTones · 06-29-2009, 09:56 AM

And still the monologue goes on...

I had also posted this to a bowyers site and the clear consensus there is hackberry, which is a good bow wood.

I carried a limb out to my Yoshino and there was a little difference in the shade of the bark and the trunk on my tree is not nearly as misshapen, but it still looks related. However, I will go with the consensus and call it hackberry unless I can figure out how to determine it more definitively. Either wood is fine for my purposes, which was the main reason for trying to ID it.

RobS. · 06-29-2009, 10:36 AM

Originally Posted by AndyBarnhart

And still the monologue goes on...

I had also posted this to a bowyers site and the clear consensus there is hackberry, which is a good bow wood..

Hackberry was my guess. It's not particularly common, but can be found near rivers or streams and has a tendency to have small black worm holes.

Jeff · 07-03-2009, 11:50 AM

Here's a thought: Perhaps European Hornbeam or Eastern Hop Hornbeam (Ironwood to many NC local folks). Kinda hard to tell from the leaf pics because of the shady areas, but both the hackberry and hornbeam have somewhat similar appearances.

The relatively smooth bark and white heartwood look like Hornbeam. Hackberry has a rougher, almost cork like bark similar to elm, but this is a relatively young tree that you have.

Contact DaveO, he's pretty good with this stuff.

CarvedTones · 07-03-2009, 12:34 PM

I got several replies from bowyers that were near certain about hackberry. I have worked a couple of staves and it is very fibrous; you have to be careful about pulling on stray splinters. I haven't finished a bow yet, but I have been tillering a piece that is not really a good bow stave because of shape. I wanted to learn its bending properties on a piece that would not break my heart if it gets destroyed. It's turned into a rather ugly but highly functional bow; this stuff is very nice to work with for making bows.

Jeff · 07-03-2009, 04:43 PM

Good that you've got a consensus id. I don't know anything about recurves or longbows and their properties, but surmise that hackberry is a good wood for making them.

Good luck and keep us posted on their machinability and performance.

CarvedTones · 07-03-2009, 11:43 PM

It bends really good. This piece is not well tillered. It's a bad split just being done for practice. Chunks split out and knots all over it. But it is encouraging how this wood works and bends:

RobS. · 07-04-2009, 01:01 PM

You know, it also looks like young beech.

Does it smell a bit like chewing gum when you cut into the bark? That could be basswood.

dkeller_nc · 07-11-2009, 03:29 PM

I too, strongly think it's hackberry. Carolina hornbeam and hop hornbeam leaves look similar to it, but I've never seen a hornbeam that had the rough little projections on it. Also, you could certainly identify it if you've ever worked hornbeam it's unbelievably hard (one reason it's nicknamed "ironwood").

There's one other guess, and that would be mulberry. The leaves look almost identical to mulberry, and mulberry has a photosensitive wood that's stringy. However, the trunks on a mulberry don't look like that - they're a very light tan with somewhat rough bark, and I've never seen lichens growing on it.