Wood Identification Help
Posted: Sun Jun 28, 2020 8:16 pm
Free wood is a great thing - I was given some unidentified hardwood scraps passed along via a relative from a non-luthier woodworker. One turned out to be Wenge. This piece I have not been able to ID yet. At first glance it looks teak-ish, but it is very heavy. So I measured it carefully - 66.4 mm x 46.8 mm x 494 mm - and weighed it - 1464 gm. If my math is correct, that gives it a density of 955 kg/cubic metre. I have looked at a lot of wood sites. The Wood Finder page on the Wood Database site allows you to enter certain details, like density, and search the images. There is nothing really close except Chechen came up, so I looked further into that, and I wonder if that is what it is. This piece is less reddish than most of the Chechen photos I've seen, but there are some that have that teak-ish look. I'd be grateful for any thoughts on why it isn't Chechen, or why it might be something else. There is no smell to speak of. If it is this dense, I might use it for ukulele fingerboards, or instrument bridges, or even get tenor ukulele sides and a four-piece back out of it (though I have not yet tried a four-piece back. Photos are taken with a piece of Black Walnut for reference; colour of this piece is slightly more brown and less orange than in the photos. Thanks - Bruce W.