can you identify this wood?

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The Penguin

The Penguin

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Houston, TX
this is some FOG wood I picked up several weeks ago - just now having time to cut it up.

the tree was probably 24" diameter at the base, maybe a bit larger. the interior of the wood is a deep brown, reminds me of walnut. There is a streak of darkish red/maroon that runs through some of it. the bark is fairly smooth, and there is a black tar-like substance on the bark in many places.

the odor while cutting is kind of nutty/fruity.

there were no leaves when I picked up the logs, so I can't identify by that.

thanks
 

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Are you sure it isn't walnut? The nutty smell would be a dead give away. It looks like it could be to me. Poplar would be my other guess.
 
all the poplar I've ever seen is greenish colored

twice I tried knocking on the door at the house where I picked it up, but nobody was home.

I've never seen a walnut tree to know for sure.

one person in my local club thought it might by box elder - which I understand is in the maple family so that might explain the smell also.
 
Definitely Walnut, and it looks like its trying to spalt. Which... he does not do willingly.
 
Definitely poplar. I've seen that purple before, and I was told that it is from minerals in the dirt. The bark is all wrong for walnut. Walnut bark is rowed and flakes into layers when a piece is broken.
 
I've been looking at pics from various sawmills that have websites showing harvest photos - and from them, I don't think it's box elder or walnut because of the bark.

I'm now thinking it could be "rainbow" poplar
 
Another vote for walnut.

I've cut up a bunch and the bark can be smooth like that. The coloration of the wood & grain is consistent too. I've seen the typical brown along with purple, maroon, green, black and blue(ish) coloration in walnut. I like to refer to it as rainbow walnut if here's lots of colors together like that.

That type of spalting is very typical for the sapwood of walnut from my experience.
 
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I would say poplar, looks like some of the black i made for the soldiers, was given to me because he had never seen black in his poplar trees,
real light pen,easy to turn
 
The Penguin said:
don't know why I didn't think of this before...

link should take you to a Google street view photo of the tree. it's the one in the front yard, just right of the white fence.

Houston, TX - Google Maps
Click to expand...

I can't get a good look at the leaves... the picture goes out of focus when I zoom in, but from the shape of the trunk and what I can see of the leaves makes me think of a couple of Magnolias I've seen around here... but the magnolia I have is white wood, so pretty sure NOT magnolia.

More likely those voting poplar are correct.
 
I cut a bunch of bowl blanks last night and then mounted them and rough turned the faces to remove the chainsawed surfaces.

I think I have to rescind the "nutty/fruity" smell of the wood - it's kind of peppery.

whatever it is - it's going to make some nice bowls. and platters. and hollow forms. and pens. and bottle stoppers. and...
 
You should keep the finished pieces out of direct sun light. The green in poplar will go to brown after exposure, and the purple will fade as well. It's beautiful wood, but will change like most color intense woods.
 
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