Here's a hardwood puzzler! tree ID please. . .

[WoodButcher80]

ok, this was a wood score i got for free about 2 months ago . it was in a suburb outside of cleveland where there are tons of red oak sugar maples, shagbarks, elms,cherries etc.

this one i was told was black locust, but after looking at my trusty audubon book of trees, i definitely now have my doubts.

the wood is slightly stringy, tough as nails and quite hefty too . no off smell to it.

the split product was gorgeous. the inner corewood had a deep burgundy-brown color, like that of a pignut hickory. see pic

funny thing is , after the first few weeks of it sitting in my gravel driveway and now to splitting area, these little sawdust piles have been popping up on the wood. its only happening to this cord of wood, not to any other wood i have around it . ive never split anything of this species. what is it? walnut? buckeye? it was a huge tree, about 3' in diameter, maybe 60' tall or so , i dont know , it was struck by lightning.

 

[WoodButcher80]

more pics ......... woo hoo !

 

[Delta-T]

is the sawdust from some critter diggin' into the wood? some kind of ant or beetle or something?

 

[TreePapa]

is the sawdust from some critter diggin' into the wood? some kind of ant or beetle or something?

looks like powder post beetle to me. don't know much 'bout wood id, sorry.

Peace,
- Sequoia

 

[WoodButcher80]

.ya, those piles are from the beelte or whatnot .

what whatever the species of wood is, they sure like it !
funny thing is i split several 'infected' logs and didnt find that much of a trace of their collateral damages .

 

[Archie]

I'm going with shagbark hickory or some other variety of hickory. Have you noticed any nuts on the ground, either this year or past years?

 

[WoodButcher80]

well ill tell you what.... its not my property, its a house on maybe .25 acre in the city/suburb .
hickory is my favorite wood, and thats the first thing i thought when i saw the inside color of it , as well as how it was slighlty stringy .
however, ive cut a lot of shagbark and pignut, i have about 3 cords of it now, and none has bark like this.

shagbark's bark flails out in big pieces, even when cut into sections.

pignut is more smoother than this , as i have a ton around my house and in my wood pile. this bark is scaly , very rough..... pignut is easy to handle

shellbark is not too common around us , as shag and pig dominate. cant say ive cut any down, but i thought they were flaky like shag too . . . this isnt flaky , if you pulled at the bark you might get a piece the size of a golf ball or less, whereas with shagbark you get a strip!

 

[Bubbavh]

Gum??????

 

[Bubbavh]

Gum??

 

[WoodButcher80]

i dont think you mean gumtree or eucalyptus , since there is no sap coming out and this is a hardwood . oh , ya, and theyre only found in australia .

 

[Archie]

well ill tell you what.... its not my property, its a house on maybe .25 acre in the city/suburb .
hickory is my favorite wood, and thats the first thing i thought when i saw the inside color of it , as well as how it was slighlty stringy .
however, ive cut a lot of shagbark and pignut, i have about 3 cords of it now, and none has bark like this.

shagbark's bark flails out in big pieces, even when cut into sections.

pignut is more smoother than this , as i have a ton around my house and in my wood pile. this bark is scaly , very rough..... pignut is easy to handle

shellbark is not too common around us , as shag and pig dominate. cant say ive cut any down, but i thought they were flaky like shag too . . . this isnt flaky , if you pulled at the bark you might get a piece the size of a golf ball or less, whereas with shagbark you get a strip!

I hear ya. Wood ID can be tough. Age of tree, geographic location, elevation, all that stuff plays into it. But this time of year, when the leaves are out, that is a big help. I thought I saw "hickory-looking" leaves in the backgrouond of your pic. I'm also a big fan of hickory.

 

[WoodButcher80]

thats right buddy! pignuts all over the place by me! pigs are quite easy on the eyes compared to shagbark....much smoother.

when it comes to bucking it up they seem easier too.

. this stuff was no easy task to cut or split tho. made me think of how nice it is to split red oak!

 

[Bubbavh]

i dont think you mean gumtree or eucalyptus , since there is no sap coming out and this is a hardwood . oh , ya, and theyre only found in australia .

Sweetgum... A good way to tell is they leave spikey balls all over the ground. It's real dense like oak but doesn't burn nearly as well and is a real PITA without a splitter.

 

[PA. Woodsman]

What you have there is Hickory, some of the pictures look like Shagbark, some with the reddish-bark look like Shellbark. And yes, insects will bore into it and create those little sawdust piles. Hickory is a kick-ass wood; great score!!

 

[WoodButcher80]

well, i went to the guys house a few months ago to get the wood and it would be awkward to go there again just to look for spiky balls!

my guess is no its not sweetgum. though its quite popular, and only second in production to oaks. its the #1 furniture wood as well. theres your tidbits.

now, my reasoning is that ive never seen a sweetgum anywhere or heard of local producers talk about it, and also its northernmost range goes to southern ohio, and i am about 5 hours north of there in the corner of the state with a much cooler climate. southern ohio is more like tenessee or kentucky

 

[WoodButcher80]

hickory it is
shell or shag, i dont care, its good wood!

im just used to your typical shagbark trunks that ive been climbing for years to get into my favorite hunting stands. ... having to stab the treestep into the bark 3 or 4 times just to get the screw to 'bite' into the wood !

guess i shoulda went with my gut when i saw the inner wood.

 

[Zimm]

It might very well be black locust. I have some on my woodlot that does show similar bark . Also there is a species specific beetle called the Painted Locust borer (similar to the painted hickory borer) that mates in the late summer and the larvae create sawdust piles like you descibe. Not sweetgum and it doesn't seem right for Shagbark or Pignut Hickory. Give me a leaf.....

 

[Archie]

Chunk up a few pieces for the grill!

 

[Todd]

That's a tough one. Doesn't look like the Black Locust I have, but it could be some kinda hybrid Locust or Hickory since it was on a city street? I scored some Locust the other day from the city and it has smooth bark and no thorns.

 

[TreePapa]

i dont think you mean gumtree or eucalyptus , since there is no sap coming out and this is a hardwood . oh , ya, and theyre only found in australia .

They're only native to Aussie - Land. They're found in lots of places, having been introduced in the 19th and esp. 20th century. There are innumerable eukie trees in So. Calif. In fact, eukie is the primary "hardwood" sold as firewood here in so cal. But whatever they are, the longs in the pics are not any eukie that I have ever seen. Most eukie has thin bark that peels off in flakes, some has thicker reddish bark.

And my experience w/ powder post beetles is that the damage to the wood is usually right under the bark. And they burn just fine.

Peace,
- Sequoia

 

[BJN644]

I've seen big maple that looks similar to what you have there.

 

[ikessky]

They have eucalyptus plantations down in South America also. We make a processing head at work that debarks eucalyptus also.

 

[WoodButcher80]

who knows.
all i know is the INSIDE looks totally like the shades of hickory, pig and shag. so unless someone shows me a split locust, im goin with hickory.

as for maple. its not a maple. im pretty familiar with them as i have a small maple syrup operation so i need to know how to identify the different maples from the bark.

 

[JustWood]

Silver Maple. mmmmmmm hmmmmmmmm!

 

[WoodButcher80]

we dont need your stinking soft maple! get it out of here heh heh