Interesting bark...maple?

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SeanG

Member
Feb 25, 2015
92
Charlottesville, VA
Hi all,

I bought some wood on craigslist (great wood - 25% and burns great in the stove) and was told it was maple. There is definitely some maple there but there are quite a few splits that looks like maple on the inside but the bark is unlike any maple I've seen.

Have a look and let me know what you think...

Thanks,

Sean

maple_maybe2.jpeg
maple_maybe.jpeg
 
Hi all,

I bought some wood on craigslist (great wood - 25% and burns great in the stove) and was told it was maple. There is definitely some maple there but there are quite a few splits that looks like maple on the inside but the bark is unlike any maple I've seen.

Have a look and let me know what you think...

Thanks,

Sean

View attachment 169427 View attachment 169428
Might be sugar maple now that I started looking at bark online.
 
Looks like some maple I'm burning right now. On the inside anyway, the bark looks alittle different though.
 
Are you familiar with Silver maple?
Does this wood seem extremely heavy? Compared to the other splits?
It looks like Shagbark...but...
 
Maple and hickory both can have some major variances in bark. Looks more like one of the hickories , shellbark, kingnut, maybe shagbark. Could be a real flaky maple. An end grain would help as well as another bark shot from a different split.
 
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Silver maple bark 'chips' are a little longer and more gray around here and the wood color is slightly more white/yellow. I would lean toward sugar maple or some type of hickory. Leaves and buds would tell the true story.
 
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Whats the diameter on that round? Bark looks too chunky for that size to be any maple I've seen - I'd vote hickory, maybe a younger shagbark?
 
I've got every kind of maple that grows in our region and it's not like any of them. Silver maple is sort of similar in that the bark flakes off but it is quite different from that photo.
 
Some of the bigger branches on the silver maple in my backyard have bark like that. The bark curls up more on the trunk.
 
The split looks to be from the trunk of the tree. I forgot to weight it this morning but I'm going home at lunch and will compare it with the other maple I have in that stack.

At any rate, it's fairly dry and burns nicely so I'm quite happy to have it whatever it is.
 
Hickory was always prized as firewood because it gave off a very bright white light when it burned in the hearth, providing valuable illumination as well as heat. Does it burn noticeably brighter than your normal wood?
 
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