Help me id this wood

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Indianawood

Member
Nov 28, 2019
138
Northern Indiana
Northern Indiana / midwest.
A friend gave me a very large log.
Sorta looks like ash or elm but our ash isnt brown inside and our elm die before this size. Im leaning towards bitternut hickory maybe white ash?. Most of our ash is green ash. Splits pretty easy compared to shagbark. It also has been on the ground for a year and the only insects are under the bark. No Carpenter ants like shagbark.

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I would be leaning towards some sort of Ash because it has a pinhole in the middle of the cutside. It looks like Ash to me.

What kind of an aroma does it have? If it was Hickory it would smell kind of like manure, Ash has more of a very slight almost "spoiled wine smell" if that makes any sense lol!
 
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I would be leaning towards some sort of Ash because it has a pinhole in the middle of the cutside. It looks like Ash to me.

What kind of an aroma does it have? If it was Hickory it would smell kind of like manure, Ash has more of a very slight almost "spoiled wine smell" if that makes any sense lol!
First picture is shagbark I just split
Second pic is mystery wood
 

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The inside doesn't look at all like ash to me, and the bark doesn't look exactly like ash.

The inside and outside are something like pignut hickory. I'm not real familiar with bitternut hickory, so that guess seems possible. I don't think it's pignut hickory.
 
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The inside doesn't look at all like ash to me, and the bark doesn't look exactly like ash.

The inside and outside are something like pignut hickory. I'm not real familiar with bitternut hickory, so that guess seems possible. I don't think it's pignut hickory.
I sent the pics to a forester friend and he suggested bitternut hickory. The main reason I doubted it was that it splits fairly easy with a splitter. Im used to shagbark which is dominant here. Our ash is all white inside. This looks awfully similar to the shagbark
 
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Interesting. And over the years the only other wood that I have seen that pinhole on IS Hickory so you may be onto it there!

What about the aroma? What's it smell like when split?
 
IME thats ash for sure. Alot of it here has that coloring in the wood and as stated the hole in the middle. The bark also makes me say ash....
 
Hickory, no doubt about it.
 
Im leaning towards ash. Maybe white? I've never seen our green ash with brown wood
Yes ....we have alot of white ash with some green as well. The white ash see.s to be slightly less dense than the green. And the bug seemed to eat the white ash first around here.
 
Its fire wood fore sure :) ..... the coloring sure looks like hickory, but the bark and bug infestation says ash to me. If it splits with one strike of the axe , then Ash is my assumption. The little bit of hickory I have processed is very difficult to split easily. Some of the white ash takes on that coloring. Usually pure white but some will have that dark brown look with white outside.
 
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All white ash.....bark can vary to a degree....that being said, pignut hickory bark is very similar. For me the axe tells the difference. Hickory likes to be stringy
 
Bark is hickory, Wood is Hickory...36 years in the sawmill industry...
I hope it is but im not convinced. What do you think of the bark, grubs, holes in sap wood?
Im usually dealing with shagbark here. This possibly bitternut hickory. The shagbark is hammered by Carpenter ants. Those holes go all the thru including the heartwood

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Because nrford......
OK I was just really struggling with what looked like the EAB under the bark but it’s probably just normal insect damage to Hickory
I brought a split piece inside to dry and then compared it to my Shagbark it sure is similar so I’m pretty sure you guys are right and it’s Hickory
 
Stinkpickle is right. The blown up pic he shows does lead me to retract my statement of it being oak. It looks like honey locust bark.
 
oops