dumb question: honey locust or black locust?

[chassawyers]

I saw you post and just had to have a look.  Locust is one of my favorites!

I was cutting some osage orange recently in a grown up old pasture and there were some big locust in a burn pile!  I begged to take possession and salvage them.  I was granted salvage rights.

These have a diameter of about 24" and at least two good cuts of 10 feet each.  The trunks are loaded with the most vicious thorn clusters you ever saw...6-10" nasties!  Internal wood is redish brown with white sap wood.

I spent an hour looking up exactly what species my tree was.  Lots of sites but nothing definitive.  I can tell you from my research my tree is definitely either black or honey locust (all humor intended).  Your tree looks like the ones in my yard.  Mine do not smell bad though (no comment).  They have nice little white flowers with a sweet honey smell.

One thing I can say fer sure is I love the locust.  I quarter saw all my hardwoods and the locust is excellent.  I am hoping for enough to do a floor.  I fill the imperfections with clear epoxy and sand smooth.  I think of it as having the durability of oak and the toughness of hickory.  You will love it the more you use it...chas

[Modat22]

I think of locust (ether honey or black) as american mahogany, great stuff for furniture (just make sure you pre-drill everything)

[Daren]

(just make sure you pre-drill everything)

If not you will be digging out broken off screws, it'll snap the heads right off. I just got dibs on a decent load today. The city is doing some work at our sewer treatment plant. They have to expand into the timber and do some clearing to set manholes etc. I went out with the city guy and marked what I wanted. Some decent locust, good and straight but not very big and a couple nice sycamore. He will cut them and bring them to me, we work together alot.

[SwampDonkey]

I had to do that with white ash also. I was using brass screws on one project and there was no way to get them all the way in without a pre-drill.

[willscot]

Honey locust thorns are long and skinny and in clusters, Black locust has short stubby single thorns like on a rose bush. Black is more rot resistant than honey, but bees like honey better

[WDH]

Honeylocust thorns are modified branches and the thorns themselves branch.  Black locust thorns are modified stipules and are in pairs at the base of the leaf petiole and are exactly like those on rose bushes. 

What is a stipule?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stipule