What it is?

[Larry]

I hauled some ceramic tile last week and think the pallets came out of Mexico.  Any ideas on the species of wood?

Wood on the right has little water on it to show the grain.




The rays were thick and from what I could tell long...much like bur oak.

[Tom]

except for the red color, it looks a lot like Live Oak.

[SwampDonkey]

I wonder how available bur oak is. It's rare up here in this kneck of the woods. Some of you fellas in the heart of oak country (with several species) can probably help.  ;) I was browsing through the Wood Tech book, but they didn't show many Oak species or surfaces to compare.  :-\

[Larry]

I'm sure it's not bur oak as I saw a lot of that stuff.  We don't have any live oak so not well acquainted with that species...maybe Tom is right...didn't think live oak got that red.  What ever it is sure is pretty.

[crtreedude]

Well, there is something down here called Roble Coral which is of course a live oak with a redish color. I don't think that is it. We have almost 2,000 species down here, hard to keep track of them.

[DonE911]

I'm certainly not an expert here, but that loks alot like swamp oak ( the south FL type not sure what it's real name is ) to me. 

Tom you know FL wood pretty good, what do ya think?

[Tom]

Don,

I think that it looks a lot like many whiteoaks with the thick modullary rays.  The biggest problem I have is that the White oaks I've seen down here are all gray colored, especially the heartwood.

I've seen few Red Oaks (laurel, S. Red, Water, etc.) that have rays that thick.  One acception is Black Jack, but to see a piece cut commercially would be rare.  The stickler is that this piece of wood is in a pallet and Pallet mills will use just about anything that will make a board.

It's got to be Oak, and I think it's Live Oak.  The color of the pallet deck would be the color I would expect though.

[solodan]

California Black Oak (Quercus kelloggi) has thick rays. I've never seen it used for anything other than fire wood. i have milled it a few times. I do believe that it grows as far south as northern mexico. so maybe.

[LeeB]

I'm gonna go with the live oak. That was my first impression before I even read the thread. A lot of Mexican tiles come from the Saltillo area, just a little ways from the Texas border. Looks like the Live Oak I sometimes mill in the Austin area. LeeB