Greetings to everyone! I bought 22 shutters from a guy that I thought were pine. When I started working with it I could smell the cedar. It's not the same as aromatic cedar but maybe incense cedar. I first thought it was western red cedar but the end grain doesn't match the picture on wood-database.com. I will try to attach some pictures. I would appreciate anyone's opinion on what species of wood this might be.
Well, the "Click here to add photos to post" button only allows me to add photos to my album. I don't know how to get the photos from the album into the post.
**update**
Wood-database western red cedar
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/46301/IMG_0671.JPG?easyrotate_cache=1498616668)
End grain from shutter
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/46301/IMG_0667.JPG?easyrotate_cache=1498616669)
Shutter
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/46301/IMG_0665.JPG?easyrotate_cache=1498616668)
Welcome to FF TCole!
Leave your window open with the post box open and the curser in it. Then open another window with your gallery, go below picture and click "insert photo in post." Hope that helps. Not sure about the cedar.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/46301/IMG_0665.JPG?easyrotate_cache=1498616668)
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/46301/IMG_0667.JPG?easyrotate_cache=1498616669)
Looks like old western red to me.
Thanks for the help fishpharmer. I have updated the post with the pics. The wood-database end grain pic shows a tighter grain and no visible pores like in the shutter end grain pic. What do you think, Chop?
I have western red cedar here with 1/2 grain/growth rings.
Newer stuff (second and third growth) have wider rings and more red/salmon color. The old growth/BC stuff is tighter like yours and the darker brown color.
Yours looks just like the lumber I get when I saw old cedar tele poles.
Yes, the tight growth rings means the tree was growing slowly in a mature forest. "Old Growth". Might take 300 years to reach a decent size.
If a forest is logged and regrows the new trees have plenty of light / water / nutrients and grow MUCH faster, meaning the growth rings are further apart. So you might get a harvestable "second growth" tree in 50 years. I have local Port Orford Cedar here that has 3 or 4 growth rings per inch. It's perfectly OK wood, but it's certainly not the same as the "Old Growth" stuff with 20 or 30 rings per inch.
So growth ring spacing is a poor identifier, as those depend on how the individual tree grew. (Climate / Competition etc)
Yes, western red cedar.
OK so I'll rear my ignorant head again, so what's the difference between Eastern red cedar (which grows like a weed around here) and Western red cedar?
Western red cedar is brown with the slightest aromatic smell. Eastern red cedar is red and with cream colored sapwood with a very strong and distinct smell. Western red cedar usually is all heartwood with no light colored sapwood. The eastern red cedar has a distinctive cream colored sapwood.
Thanks WDH, we have so much erc around here I didn't know there was anything else :D.
Thanks for everyone's input. Here is a pic of the wood after it has been through a shaper
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/46301/IMG_0681.JPG?easyrotate_cache=1499093652)
Let's not miss an educational opportunity here! :P
WDH, what tells us that this wood is WRC and not Atlantic White Cedar? It looks a lot like AWC to me, which also has aromatic qualities.
Quote from: sandhills on June 28, 2017, 12:25:25 PM
OK so I'll rear my ignorant head again, so what's the difference between Eastern red cedar (which grows like a weed around here) and Western red cedar?
I don't know if I could easily tell the woods apart (though my house is made from WRC) but the two trees are not very similar at all. Isn't ERC a Juniperous species? Like our juniperious occidentalis in eastern Oregon? Our western red cedar isn't a true cedar either, thuya plicata. But it smells good. I planted about 450 of them a year and a half ago with good survival so far. I'll be glad when I can quit fighting the weeds around them.
I'll leave that one for the professionals here, but if your wrc grows anything like our erc here you won't have to battle weeds long ;).
Does white cedar hold up in the weather as good as ERC?
From my experience the heartwood holds up very well to the elements. The sapwood will rot rather quickly.