Is this Keruing?

[Les Symonds]

A mate of mine who does portable timber milling, has been offered some beams for re-sawing, and has a very tatty sample piece. He put a few pics of his sample on a tree/timber identification site and got a load of daft responses....some even though it was oak!
As soon as I saw the golden brown colour of the fresh-sawn timber, I thought of Keruing. It's weight is a little more per cu ft than what the Wood Database suggests, but it is a little higher in  moisture content than what is classed as dry wood. It is fully diffuse porous with all solitary cells.

The block I've photographed is 5cm x 5cm x 7.5cm....sorry about the enlargement being a bit fuzzy, but it's enlarged to approx 10x mag

Les

[seventhdevil]

i said it on facebook and i'll say it again.

it's greenheart...

http://www.wood-database.com/greenheart/

[Les Symonds]

I'm not convinced, Steve.....I've had many a piece of greenheart a this seems too light-weight. Also, I can't see any multiple-cells in my sample, but greenheart usually has quite a few

[seventhdevil]

the weight is only an average les. you will always get the heavy and light end of the scale.

the pores are not a problem if there are no multiples (i think i can see a few anyway) but the rays are an exact match.

does it have an odour???

[Les Symonds]

Not a strong odour, but yes...a little bit sour smelling

[seventhdevil]

keruing has a distinctly resinous scent when worked where as greenheart usually has little or no odour but the clincher for me is the colour.

http://www.hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/apitong.htm
none of the pictures on this link have the darker streaks that are common in greenheart and present in the block you have pictured.

http://www.hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/greenheart.htm
on this link you can see plenty of pictures of wood that looks identical to your block.



another test could be to see if your block reacts to a bit of iron and water overnight.

[seventhdevil]

going through a few of my books it seems you will get a resin build up on power saws if it is keruing.

[Les Symonds]

All of the dark streaks on this sample, follow hairline cracks and other faults. This piece came from quite close to the outside of a heavily weathered beam with plenty of cracks and faults in it. The beams are 21ft x 18" x 18".
Also....there was a small amount of resin build up on my bandsaw blade after making several cuts... I scraped a few dry flakes of the face of the blade afterwards....and it definitely has a smell, not strong, but distinct.

Les

[seventhdevil]

your suspicions may be correct then.

looks bang on for greenheart by the pictures though.

i'm struggling to find out if it reacts to iron like greenheart does but do a test for a couple of days with a nail and some water and see what happens. usually if you can find no references to say it reacts to iron then it probably doesn't.

[The Bowler Hatted Turner]

For what it is worth I would have said Greenheart too. It could be that the beams are so old that they have had time to dry out a bit more than you would normally see Greenheart as. (not sure if that sounds right but you know what I mean). I'm not sure that Keruing gets the resin pockets that Greenheart gets. I had a look at the endgrain of a piece of Greenheart in my workshop after seeing this and I think that is what you have.

[Les Symonds]

Cheers John.....I've set up the iron-stain test that Steve suggested, so will give it a day or two.

These beams are 18"x18"x21ft, so they're over a tonne each, so whatever the species, they're going to take some handling.

Les

[seventhdevil]

what was it les?

the purpose of the beam may also be an indicator as to what species will be used.

also curious as to how you would describe the texture?

[Les Symonds]

I've no idea what the beams were and I'm not sure that my mate knows either. The texture was a bit dry and splintery (is there such a word), but when the end grain of the little block was cleaned up, it became extremely smooth. I cut the end grain with a chop saw with a well used blade, then touched the block against a belt sander at 120, then a light rub with 180/240/320/400 and it was as smooth as velvet.

Les

[The Bowler Hatted Turner]

If I remember correctly Keruing is one of the timbers that does not splinter easily, and that is the reason they used it in mobile horse boxes etc so the animals would not get splinters.

[burywoodturners]

The wood I knew as kerring was red in colour and lacking anything like a knot. We used it on the bed of flat bed lorries as itr was totally waterproof and splinter free, I can let you have a sample of some I had given to me some years ago. we only replaced it when it was too damaged to use.
The stuff burns exeptionally well even when saturated with water, I burned with a fire one end and steam the other, rather like some of the posts we geton here!
Ron