Help me ID this hardwood?

[2bitaxe]

I purchased 1000' BF of 4/4 hardwood at an auction for $250. It was air-dried and neatly stickered. I think it's oak, not sure if red or white. And what's up with the dark streaks?  Is this rot or mineral deposits? About 10% of the boards have this dark figuring. If I use it for flooring, will it take up finish, look decent and stand up to wear? Anyone have experience with this?

I guess it could be something other than oak. With my limited experience, the closest thing I've seen that it resembles is oak.

Here's a picture of it stacked in my garage.



I planed a piece and rubbed some linseed oil on it so you can see the grain. 


What do you think?

Thanks in advance.

[learner]

Maybe spalted white oak?  Someone with more experience wood know.

[POSTON WIDEHEAD]

Cherry ?

[Jeff]

Looks like maple to me. The dark streaks is spalting

[beenthere]

And there may be more than one species in that stack.
The second pic shows a couple boards with ingrown bark and apparent rot/decay in the board between those two. Those should be removed if going into flooring, but might pass if paneling.

[Okrafarmer]

Looks like maple to me. The dark streaks is spalting

You are probably right on the maple. That is some beautiful spalting there. It definitely does not look like oak to me. Nor cherry. . .

And there may be more than one species in that stack.

Good point. 

[clww]

I think the spalted wood with the finish is maple, too. As written before, may be more than one variety.

[5quarter]

can't tell what species, except that that type of spalt (pencil line) is predominant in hard maple, so maybe Jeff's right. Looks like you got a mixed bag in that whack of lumber. nice score.

[Okrafarmer]

You got a bargain, regardless. 

[T Welsh]

Oak will not spalt that much! I go with Jeff maybe Maple. Need a closer picture to really tell, with out oil on it. Tim

[Okrafarmer]

Make a clean new end cut and show us the end grain up close.

[WDH]

I think that it is spalted sycamore by the ribbon striping on the top board of the pic where the lumber has been planed.  The interlocked grain of sycamore presents that striped effect.  Sycamore also spalts just like maple.  However, the whole stack might not be sycamore.  I don't think that it is oak, either.  A pic of the end grain with a clean slice to show the growth rings will tell the tale.

[Jeff]

Since 2bitaxe is from central Michigan, there is a slight chance of the lumber containing Sycamore, as it grows in that region in the river bottoms, but odds are, it's not, as it is simply hardly ever utilized commercially, at least with the mills I was acquainted with. If this was a farm auction odds go up, but I've seen a whole lot of old stickered maple piles over the years, and this looks like one. To me the give away is the board sticking out near the bottom of the pile in the first photo. Hard maple that ages in a pile will many times get that pastie looking brown cast to the heartwood.

[rooster 58]

I dont think the planed wood is maple. The spalting looks like maple but the grain is too bold for maple

[Jeff]

If you are used to soft maple, you might think that, but Hard Maple very often has a pronounced grain.
http://www.mapleinfo.org/htm/maplumprop.cfm

If I was told the bottom photos were maple, one was soft (red) and the other hard(sugar) I'd say the bottom selection was the hard and not think twice that they were anything but maple. Its still pretty hard to be definitive from the given photos.

[Okrafarmer]

I purchased 1000' BF of 4/4 hardwood at an auction for $250. It was air-dried and neatly stickered.

Here's a picture of it stacked in my garage.

It's in your garage. . .  and it's dry. . . . and it's stickered.  ???  Why did you sticker it when you put it in your garage? Won't hurt anything, it's just more work.

BTW, in that top picture where you say it's in your garage, I am seeing different colors in some of the different boards. That could mean several possible things. One is that some of the boards, being on the outside of the stack, were exposed to light over time (or other environmental factors, such as dust accumulation). Or it could be natural variation within a species. The third possibility that stands out to me, is that there could be multiple species represented there, as has been pointed out.

[Sawdust Lover]

I have a pack of beach that looks like that. I'm gonna say beach.

[Okrafarmer]

Beech does spalt pretty.

[learner]

Don't mind me.  I'm just drooling over the possability of Having some of the wood you men are talking about.

[DDobbs]

I would like to see some without anything on it. An as others have said end grain also edge grain would tell all very easy. Any bark left at all on any of them?

[Solomon]

Where did you get it?   You guys don't think it might be something like sasafrass do ya?

[WDH]

I don't think that it is "grainy" enough.  Sassafras is ring porous with large spring time earlywood pores and small summer latewood pores like oak and ash which when cut, the contrast is what we see as "grain".  Maple, beech and sycamore are all diffuse porous where the pores are all the same size, so the "grain" pattern is not as dramatic.  In some species like basswood, there is hardly any "grain" at all.

[2bitaxe]

Make a clean new end cut and show us the end grain up close.

And I found a few boards with some bark still on, which doesn't look like Maple to me:

[mikeb1079]

i'm going soft maple all the way....(silver?)

[WDH]

Forget those ill-timed comments I made about it not being "grainy" enough  :.  That first board sure looks "grainy" and ring porous in the newly posted pics .  I don't think that the boards are all the same species. 

That first new pic does look like sassafras, Mr Solomon!  I don't see the prominent rays of oak. 

Can you take a razor knife and make a clean end grain cut and take a closer pic?

[Jeff]

Yea, those look like different boards than were sticking out of the pile. Not sure if any of those look like maple, especially the top one.  That sliver of bark tells me white oak for that photo.

[Sawdust Lover]

Your gonna have to find out what it is and let us know. If you have a University near you there forestry dept. will tell you. You have us all wondering now. :P

[SwampDonkey]

The wood there that was finished and planed and the latest photos don't suggest maple. I couldn't see any big rays (oak) because of the photos, but ash or sassafrass is my guess. If there is a luster after planing then ash, aromatic than sas. Leaning hard on sas because the ends show too much waviness for ash. ;D Sass is around Lake Erie on the Ontario side, so I assume it's in C. MI.

Like Jeff and others suggest, I think there is a mixed bag in that pile. But beware, ash and sas are an oak look  alike until you look at the fine details.

[Jeff]

I would doubt Sassafras, simply because of living my entire life in Michigan, I have never seen a Sassafras tree. I've never lived down state though, but I know it does not grow up here, unless perhaps as an ornamental. I am really above the walnut line as well. While you do see the odd tree here and there, they are usually always planted in a yard. I've never saw one wild in the woods. If you go 40 miles south of here, you can start to find some of the hickories and butternut, with butternut now being almost non-existent due to blight.

[SwampDonkey]

Probably so Jeff. The sas I think would be on the fringe there and not very big if you found any.

I was wondering if the brownish one in post 22 was butternut actually. Sure looks like it. Is it soft and light weight? The waviness to the rings is often in butternut. I would say it is also stained lumber though. Looks like butternut sawdust on the floor.

[SwampDonkey]

I take the part back about the ash not being wavy. I was looking at some samples in the shop of ash and they have that waviness once in awhile. What makes me suspect ash a little more now is the uneven color in those finished boards. Ash hasn't a true heartwood, you get brown, yellow brown and grey brown all mixed from one ring to the next in the heart. Not an even color. Kind of why they want the lighter outter side lumber when staining and finishing.

There is still a mixed bunch of species as far as I'm concerned.

[SwampDonkey]

A fellow just down the road about 4 miles built a home bandsaw mill. He sawed a whack of ash, I bought some and the rest has laid outside in a stack now for a good 10 years. It's nice and black now and probably well spalted. ;D His boards had terrible wane to.  :D

[DDobbs]

man this it a tough one,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, how heavy is it  what does a 1x6 x 8 weigh?