Need some help with a wood I.D.

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karlkuehn

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Hey guys!

I found this wood in the bushes at work today, and was wondering what they are.

There are two pieces (two different species), one has grown spiraled all the way up, and was found dead and mostly dry in the middle of what looked like a clump of dogwood or something - same tree I think, just not spiralled. The healthy part of the tree was 6 or 8 trunks in a clump maybe 15 or 20 feet tall, and they sort of gnarled up from the ground with lots of elbows and kinks almost to the top of the canopy where it spread out into a mushroom shaped green leafy (shape similar to aspen, you know, standard leaf shape) canopy. The whole overall look of the tree was sort of like a giant bonsai. The piece I got was growing up out of the middle of this thing and I pulled it out sideways(the bottom burl was mostly dry and rotten) at the ground level.

Here's a pic or two:


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The other piece acts like ash, pretty white, weird grain patterns, and it's very hard and stringy when you try to break it. the part that I broke off I had to twist a lot to make it come apart, resulting in an end that looks sorta like a paintbrush that's been severely abused.

The bark on this second piece is greyish-brown and sort of wrinkly in shape. There were lots of bigger trees with this same bark characteristic growing all around, and I think that this was a branch from one of them. It too had a sort of gnarly shape to the whole canopy, with branches growing and kinking at all angles.

Please let me know your thoughts!

Thanks a ton
 
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karlkuehn

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Originally posted by jthompson1995
<br />My thoughts, the spiraled one looks like dogwood, the bumpy one looks like ironwood, also known as hornbeam or musclewood. Both woods are native in your area.

The one tree definitely looked like dogwood, and the other broke apart like ironwood, all splintery and tough. It's also extremely hard, but I always though ironwood was pinkish red?

Thanks for the quick reply, btw.
 
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The second one may be an oak of some sort. I had some white oak a few months ago and the bark is very similar on young branchs, young for oaks is 40-50 years old as they live to 300-400 years often. It looks like rays running trough the wood in the pics, but hard to tell, this is the best part of oaks when quarter sawn. Thursday I'll see if I have any of the oak I mentioned I'll post a pic. I think its white oak from what I see. Good Luck, Victor
 

karlkuehn

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I think you hit them on the head, J, after you posted I had a starting point to look up 'hornbeam' in PA, and found several identical bark and leaf patterns.

The dogwood call was spot-on, as well. I found a lot of foliage pics that matched the leaves on the tree this came from. Thanks for the help, all! I'm really interested to see what these woods turn into. I've never seen a tree spiral like that. Would probably make some interesting bottle stoppers, as the diameter is just about right to turn through the center.

I'm also interested in the white oak pictures, landfill, on the chance that I'm wrong in my conclusions. I'll have to go scrounge around in the forest some more tomorrow! You have to love that free wood!

Thanks, you guys!
 

Hosspen

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I agree with the ironwood or musclewood for the small one. The color of the wood in the bigger one does look kinda dogwoody. The bark is usually a little more bumpy (broken into smaller chunks -if you will) down here in NC, but I'll be dogged if I could say it isn't dogwood either. It could just be a different breed of dogwood. Sorry I'm not much help on that. I bet you can make a nice pen out of that bottom spalted looking part. Good luck with it!
 
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Well I'm starting to lean on the side of hornbeam/ironwood, but this is very similar. This is white oak so I hope this might help. If you have leaves from the tree this will tell you if its a oak or not. I'll get my tree nursery book out and see what I can find. Sorry can I post pics in someone elses tread ??? Looks like i can't, Check for a new post for pics. Good Luck, Victor
 

gerryr

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You can post photos in a reply, but you can't use the "Quick Reply" to do it. You click on "Reply to Topic" just below the last post.
 

karlkuehn

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Yeah, that's oak alright. It's got those nice 'stretch marks' that make great quartersawn stuff. I've got a bunch of 100 year old red oak quartersawn that I snagged from a staircase we replaced with painted poplar. Some people and their money are amazing with the stuff they think looks good, but I ain't complaining! I love that free wood! :)

Thanks all! I foraged in the forest more today and brought home some really nice hard spalted stuff of the two woods above. I got a couple decent root burls, too. Can't wait to mill it up. My coworkers think I've lost my mind. I really need to turn a couple pens to put their minds at ease! heh
 
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