What is this wood?

[SuperDave]

... I got this wood from my Uncle in New Mexico. He said it was in his closet for years and never got around to doing anything with it, so sent it to me.

He has no idea what it is, as it was a gift from my mother and she knows even less about it than my Uncle and I combined.

It is heavy, extremely dense, rings when knocked together and stinks like a corpse when cut on the bandsaw.

 

[Dario]

From your description, sounds like desert ironwood...but the pic doesn't totally match (but possible).

 

[SuperDave]

The colors in the picture are a bit washed out. It is shades of greenish yellow, tans, beige and some dark streaking but not much in the "browns" like some of the DIW I have had in the past.

 

[karlkuehn]

Could be stinkwood. Looks a bit like the stuff I have, and the smell thing rings true for sure.

 

[SuperDave]

Karl,

I remembered a thread a few days back about Stinkwood.... first thing that came to my mind once I started cutting it up!

My first thought was Mesquite, texture was right but the color is all wrong. Then the smell really changed that thought in a hurry...[xx(]

Does your wood ring when knocked together?

 

[Russianwolf]

looks like walnut to me.

 

[R2]

The only thing that count's, for the moment is to see what the pens turn out like!!

 

[Sfolivier]

If it sinks in water, it's desert ironwood

 

[Russianwolf]

could be Ipe also

 

[karlkuehn]

Originally posted by SuperDave

Karl,

I remembered a thread a few days back about Stinkwood.... first thing that came to my mind once I started cutting it up!

My first thought was Mesquite, texture was right but the color is all wrong. Then the smell really changed that thought in a hurry...[xx(]

Does your wood ring when knocked together?

I just tried it, mine are pretty small pieces, so they make more of a 'tink' than a ring...hehe

Your pictures are pretty close to the stuff that I have. It's pretty rare if that's what it is.

 

[GoodTurns]

I would say DI...I am starting to think that there are really no DI trees...these folks in Arizona are simply finding fossilized dinosaud dung and selling it to us...that's what it smells like when cutting/drilling[xx(] but it sure do make a purty pen, don't it?

 

[SuperDave]

Originally posted by GoodTurns

I would say DI...I am starting to think that there are really no DI trees...these folks in Arizona are simply finding fossilized dinosaud dung and selling it to us...that's what it smells like when cutting/drilling[xx(] but it sure do make a purty pen, don't it?

Thanks Jon... just what I wanted to know... I now have sinuses clogged with fossilized Dino Feces[xx(]

... I wonder if I wait long enough to "clear" my sinuses, if I could cast some "Dino Boogers" in a translucent Yellow/Orange PR and sell it as 60,000,000 year old Amber Encased Dino Snot[^]

 

[Hello]

i have two thoughts on the wood

the ringing means that not only is it dense, but it has a very tightly woven grain (i.e. rock maple will ring like that, but black palm..another "dense wood" won't ring). DI does smell bad when cut sometimes....but zebra wood smells worse...smells like zebra butt!....another reason it could ring though is the beginning stages of petrification. woods kept in a very arrid climate can begin to petrify in as little as 70yrs...depending on how oily the wood is.