Some Kind Of Western U. S. Wood ?

[Autocar]

Stopped for breakfast this morning and a fellow brought in a 2x4 about two feet long It's band sawed and measures 1 3/4 x 2 3/4 pretty darn light but the wood is real dense. It has 39 grouth rings per inch a redish brown in color and said the house was built in the 1890's. Any idea what specie of pine or fir this might be. It reminds me of western red cedar but you can't dent it with your finger nail so I think that knocks that idea out.

[BradMarks]

Yew wood comes to mind, way slow grower, reddish brown, very light when dry.  Seeing a cabin from the 1890's built with it would be quite a sight.  I've seen accents like log columns, small width boards for interior deco, but hard to fathom an entire house/cabin. Most people I've known that use it, air dry it for two years before milling. Getting enough structural boards would seem quite the challenge, its growth characteristic is from twisty gnarly to straight, lots of branching.  If natural pruning is good sometimes one side of the tree will have some decent wood to work with.  And the bigger ones do rot after a few hundred years.  Personally, my raised beds in the garden are made with yew wood poles, kinda looks like lincoln logs stacked on each other.

[Autocar]

This is a 2x4 stick built home.

[Ianab]

What about Larch / Tamarack ? Pretty hard for a softwood, and can be slow growing depending on the site / climate.

[starmac]

I thought tamarac was classified as a hardwood, not to say that is not what the op has.

[newoodguy78]

Hemlock? Did the piece have any knots in it?

Others would know better but the little bit of tamarack/larch I've been around didn't have any reddish tint to it at all.

[reprod]

My guess is old growth douglas fir.  I've got an older house, all the framing is rough sawn.  Not sure about not being able to dent it with my finger nail, but it is some hard stuff. 

[JohnW]

Maybe your great grandfather could have dented it with his fingernail 125 years ago.  Doesn't pine get a little harder with age?  Also, didn't people used to have a tendency to cut 2x4's 2" x 4" back in those days?

[treeslayer2003]

i was thinking heart pine but like John i would expect to see a house that old to have full size lumber, rough sawn on a circular mill.

[CCC4]

My thoughts exactly, the dimensions should have been full numbers...we only got greedy in the last say 60 years maybe?? I would guess that someone has put it to different dimensions on a bandsaw in more recent years...not that this matters because you are wanting specie not specs. I would gather the lightness and hardness would come with age of the sawn material. Found some crude Ax chopped firewood sticks in a excessively remote cave once, light as balsa wood yet hard as a stone. No real telling of the age but I would be most likely to bet and Indian had something to do with it. As far as specie...what is growing in the area the cabin was built in? Those people utilized what was close there by...no going to Home Depot or Lowes for lumber. I'm going to bet you can narrow you search way down by knowing where the cabin was built and what was growing around it.

[Ianab]

I thought tamarac was classified as a hardwood, not to say that is not what the op has.

It's a "softwood" because of the type of tree. It gets confusing because the wood is relatively hard, and the trees loose their needles in the winter, unlike most other softwoods.

It can have a red / brown colour, more likely in older slow growing "old growth" trees I would think.

Not saying that's what it is, Just it's possible. It is a local tree, it is used as framing, and it is harder than most "softwoods"

[Autocar]

Tamarac I believe Michigan grows some and the 1890 wouldn't that be in the logging hay day up there ? Newwood Guy no knots straight grain I would say its from a butt log as clean as it is.

[pinefeller]

get a picture? railroads moved a ton of lumber all over the country in that time period. softwood also tends to harden and darken over time. probably not stick framed with hardwood, you'd never get a nail in it. on the size if it was from a local mill it would probably be full size, but if it got shipped by a big west coast mill it may be undersized, because that was a time period where the mills were trying to see what they could get away with for cost savings on shipping. google ''scant lumber sizing  and railroads'' interesting. my vote for doug fir sight unseen.