Wood ID please?

[T0RN4D0]

Don't know what it is, but its not cherry if you ask me. :]

 

[buzz sawyer]

I guess there are always variations but the sapwood looks too thin and the grain looks too coarse to be black cherry.

 

[B Harrison]

View attachment 260461


This looks like what's around here, but there is no doubt a lot of variety.

We have two kinds of wild cherry (unsure of either of their latin names) one like this that is silvery and smooth and another with rougher bark which checks up as the tree gets some age on it. I will agree it looks like cherry, I haven't ever seen any cherry with that little sapwood, it would have been better in a log to be milled down.

 

[sleprac]

OP, where are you from? New York?

You betcha- Ulster County.

The thornless honey locust idea seems plausible, but I think I'm a bit north of their usual range. I should have some black cherry kicking around the woodpile- I'll see if I can drag a piece out for a side by side comparison, but I think the black cherry bark is usually purpler and darker, and this wood has more of an orange cast to it, with a thinner cambium- similar to siberian elm? The bark is all wrong for elm though, and this stuff splits if you look at it funny. A couple of rounds popped just being dropped off the truck! :msp_smile:
The smell is a little sweet, and does remind me of cherry, but it's no where near as strong as I'm used to.
Also, the dead limbs of this tree gave the saws a workout- similar to the teeth-chattering-on-bone feel I get from standing dead black locust. Not too many woods slow down my 038 mag like that.

 

[the westspartan]

It is honey locust. You are not too far north for it. I live between Buffalo and Rochester, NY and it is all over up here. Many village streets are lined with it. It is hard as nails when dry. The only other thing it could be (due to easy splitability, wood color and noted smell) is an unusually big European Buckthorn. They have a very strange sweet smell when cut, split or burned. They split so easily that you can take a golf club style swing with an axe to rounds laying on their side and it will split in one shot. Buckthorn burns real hot as well, I am sitting next to a stove of it right now! Only thing is, it is rare for them to get that big and the bark is different (I am not sure what it looks like if it were to get that big). However, my money is still on HONEY LOCUST. Either way great score.

 

[fin460]

I Just took a look and the split grain strongly looks like green honey locust to me. The bark is similar but looking at it in the round looks a little different to what I see here in Missouri. But its probably a modified variety to not have thorns, witch by the way I would like to plant a bunch of those around here. They'll be fun to cut for some one some day.

 

[Slamm]

I Just took a look and the split grain strongly looks like green honey locust to me. The bark is similar but looking at it in the round looks a little different to what I see here in Missouri. But its probably a modified variety to not have thorns, witch by the way I would like to plant a bunch of those around here. They'll be fun to cut for some one some day.

Black locust doesn't always have the thorns on the trunk and branches. It looks like a locust to me.

Sam

 

[user 64030]

I Just took a look and the split grain strongly looks like green honey locust to me. The bark is similar but looking at it in the round looks a little different to what I see here in Missouri. But its probably a modified variety to not have thorns, witch by the way I would like to plant a bunch of those around here. They'll be fun to cut for some one some day.

I still recall the first time I cust a Locust... Limbing and draggin (OWE that hurt WTF!) Dang overgrown briar tree ;-)



dw

 

[Slamm]

I still recall the first time I cust a Locust... Limbing and draggin (OWE that hurt WTF!) Dang overgrown briar tree ;-)



dw

Its has always amazed me how honey locust and black locust are in the same family. Honey locust is utterly worthless and black locust is 30% iron ore, LOL, I know of 45 year old black locust fence posts that are still fine.

Sam