Can anyone recognize this wood?

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gr8macbeth

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San Antonio Texas
I recently acquired all of the wood from a cabinet shop that had closed down. I have not been able to identify this wood, but it looks amazing on the pen I am working on right now. It weighs in at 66.14lb/ cubic ft. It is driving me crazy that I can't identify it. I am certain it will be something I should know, and will be embarrassed when I figure it out, but I had to ask for my own sanity. lol The last picture is the same wood with homemade danish oil on it.

Thanks for looking.
 

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The pictures are a little confusing to me because in some it is brownish and others tan-ish.

I know it is not teak but it has a teak (and mulberry wood) color in the tan picts. The darker picts make it appear as a totally different wood kind of like mesquite. (Your are in Texas.)

Mulberry will turn brown with age as is the colors in the first two picts - due to the tannins in it. However, after a fresh cut the inside will be teak-ish in color and an applied finish will keep it looking like the tan pictures. The wood reminds me of mulberry some. Hmmm - The pict with the finish on it - does look like mesquite in color.

But don't take that for the truth. Some others will have more insight than me.
 
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Before reading Lee's post, I was thinking possible mesquite. While the lighter color doesn't look like mesquite shade, the grain pattern sure does. Agreed on the finished piece as well.
earl
 
Thanks. My flash must of bled out some of the color out of the ones I am holding. The dark piece with the ruler is the other side of the cut on the finished piece. I agree it is close to mesquite, but it isn't quite right. I have mesquite in my shop that I cut, and they aren't the same. I also have a 3" thick plank that is 26" wide and just over 6 feet long, I haven't ever been able to get that large of a plank out of mesquite out here. (doesn't mean I am not wrong though. :) I will have to look into mulberry and see if that matches. Thank you both for your advice. If either of you would like some blanks of this mystery wood (for now,) just let me know. Thanks again
 
After looking into mulberry wood, I believe that is what it is. I ordered a mulberry pen blank to compare them in person. Thank you once again, and I am serious if either of you would like some blanks of this wood, just send me a pm. I have more than enough to go around and like to be able to give back to those who help me.
 
I'm not sure what it is, looks familiar, the size board you have is huge. Mulberry doesn't get that big. It grows fast and gnarly, often branching close to the ground. Good luck.
 
PatrickR said:
I'm not sure what it is, looks familiar, the size board you have is huge. Mulberry doesn't get that big. It grows fast and gnarly, often branching close to the ground. Good luck.
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There are several different types of mulberry. I had one off of my driveway in Southern Indiana about 15-20 years ago that we had to cut. Base at the ground was 32 inches and widened slightly up for the first 7 feet where it split into two main branches, each about 16 inches across.


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I suppose it may be a bit of a wet blanket on the mulberry idea , but if the wood weighs in at 66 lb/ft3 , that makes it denser than water (62.4 lb/ft3) , and a lot denser than mulberry (43 lb/ft3) . So , I guess the question is , does it float or does it sink ?
 
It looks like Mesquite to me. I had a buddy in Texas send me a box of Mesquite and for the most part it's this tan color, but there were some darker pieces that almost resembled Walnut. He confirmed the entire box was mesquite. If that's bark on the first photo, right side, that doesn't look like any Mulberry I've ever seen. The bark is usually much smoother.
 
wolf creek knives said:
It looks like Mesquite to me. I had a buddy in Texas send me a box of Mesquite and for the most part it's this tan color, but there were some darker pieces that almost resembled Walnut. He confirmed the entire box was mesquite. If that's bark on the first photo, right side, that doesn't look like any Mulberry I've ever seen. The bark is usually much smoother.
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My first run-in with mulberry was in Japan. (Mulberry trees were big at one time as that is the tree that silk worms were cultivated in for obvious reasons.) I would frequent a home center that had slabs of wood. I kept seeing one that looked like walnut. While I was fluent in conversational Japanese, I didn't know all the technical words of most trees. I asked what kind of wood that was and a helper said "Kuwa". I wrote that down and went home an looked it up - Kuwa = Mulberry - the silk worm tree. We had a few mulberry trees in the woods around our farm that I grew up on in Mississippi, so I was happy to learn that. I purchased that slab, about 2 ft X 3 ft by 3 inches. When I cut it on the saw, I was totally surprised - it was teak colored inside. Not as dense as teak but teak colored - while the outside that had been subjected to a few years of UV was the color of rich brown walnut.

This is what his photos in the OP remind me of - brown in the original, and teak in the fresh cut. Either the 1. "lighting" differences between the first set and second set of photos created that difference in color, or 2. the difference is due to one part having been cut a few years ago and UV on the tannins in the wood caused it to change vs the fresh cuts.

QUESTION to the OP: how (method) did you arrive at the density of the wood in question? The density does pinpoint a closer approximation of the species. There are caveats to density, but it does eliminate many species while giving a narrower band of species to choose from.
 
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