More wood ID

[metalfingers]

I'm just trying to familiarize myself with what some of the common wood I'm snagging up is. This stuff was cut along a large creek here in central, IL. Someone else removed all the limbs so again, I didn't see any leaves. I believe there are 3 species here.



The first has a finer bark and is pretty white inside, softer than the other two and more common in the area.




I only got a little bit of this one, dark brown/reddish inside, red oak?





And this one, picked up quite a bit of this as well, definitely a more yellowy/green wood, stringy, and if I remember right had a certain smell.



I believe this is the bark of the above wood

 

[FaithfulWoodsman]

Now thats a score my friend.
#1 soft maple, prob silver, dries fast lights well
#2 could be oak, but don't see any rays. Looks more like red elm to me. Good stuff.
#3 black locust. Super hot.

 

[Hogwildz]

Second one kind of looks like black walnut

 

[Darbycrash]

I agree with Red Elm and Soft Maple, but I am not seeing any locust

 

[AmbDrvr253]

Pick on the splitter is almost certainly locust.

 

[Jags]

Silver maple, red elm and locust.

 

[trguitar]

#1 red (soft) maple
#3 does not look like locust to me. I just cut and split about a cord of it, and your photo doesn't have the right bark. Black locust bark is very deep and furrowed. And the black locust that I split isn't stringy. Need a better picture, but it looks to me like big tooth aspen.

 

[Sledhead00]

Your 3rd &4th pic looks identical to the a wood I picked up 2 yrs ago that I asked about and was told it's silver maple. Decent wood for shoulder season and thats about it IMO. Burns down to very little or no coals

 

[weatherguy]

2 is black Walnut, similar to cherry in the btu dept. 3rd isn't locust, maybe mulberry

 

[Woody Stover]

Pic #1, Red Maple and hard Maple...not sure about the top round in that pic.
Black Walnut...bark doesn't look like Slippery (Red) Elm.
Yellow stuff, I dunno, maybe Redbud or Mulberry....but they don't get that big here in the woods, so I only see the bark on small ones. Bark isn't right for BL, though...

 

[PA. Woodsman]

The one that you said has a certain smell, the split one on the splitter and the last one I believe could be Sassafras; it would have a unique smell to it. I don't see any ones that look like Black Walnut, which ones are you guys talking about?

 

[byQ]

I do a lot of red elm, and #2 looks exactly like the stuff I've split. #3, locust popped into my mind but I've only seen it a few times. #1 - ?.

 

[Fanatical1]

#1 is soft maple, probably silver. Could be red maple.

#2. is a red oak variety. Maybe chestnut oak with the deep bark furrows. Wood looks like red elm, but bark is wrong and red elm sap wood doesn't turn punky and white. Red elm bark is relatively smoother and thin. If it's red oak, you should be able to smell a fresh split and know for sure, as it's a dead give away.

#3. Is sassafras. You can always tell from the unique smell it has with a greenish colored wood. Also has a distinct red layer between the bark and the wood and deeply furrowed bark.

 

[FaithfulWoodsman]

#2. is a red oak variety

No rays visible in clear end shot.

Red elm bark is relatively smooth and thin.

Sure your not thinking AM elm? Red elm while not the most furrowed bark is deff not smooth or thin.....At least near me. Although trees can be quite some characters in diff environments.

 

[weatherguy]

The one that you said has a certain smell, the split one on the splitter and the last one I believe could be Sassafras; it would have a unique smell to it. I don't see any ones that look like Black Walnut, which ones are you guys talking about?

#2, I've had it a couple times and that's exactly what it looks like, thin layer of white with brown heartwood.

 

[ADK_XJ]

Yep, x3 on sassafras — just cut down like 15 of them and before I consuted this forum I thought it was Black Locust. It has a very distinctive smell but so does locust. Sassafras smells kind of good (like root beer) and locust smells kind of bad (like stale straw or urine).

And agree the first is a red or silver maple. Not sure about #2 — if I found that on my woodlot I'd say oak for sure but think the others chiming in with elm know what they're talking about.

 

[PA. Woodsman]

#2, I've had it a couple times and that's exactly what it looks like, thin layer of white with brown heartwood.

I have burned a lot of Walnut but the grain is always brown, a lot darker than that, and the bark is a bit different, but it could be, this fella is in Illinois and I'm in Pennsylvania and I know sometimes wood looks different from state to state.

 

[redktmrider]

One more vote for sassafras on #3. Burnt it off and on for about 12 years. Burns quick and hot when dry.

 

[Jags]

The OP is a bit south of me, but we really don't get much of the sass around these parts. Locus, however, is Pretty common. Gotta stick to my locust guns on this one... (just my opinion, of course.)

 

[weatherguy]

Mulberry looks like that and also smells. I don't get muck mulberry or sass but we do have a lot of black locust, the deep furrowed bark is a dead giveaway, that 3rd one doesn't have that.

 

[BamaScroungr]

I'm going to say maple, red oak and mulberry

 

[Jags]

I could possibly be swayed to mulberry. Quite a bit of that stuff around as well.

 

[metalfingers]

Now I think the 2nd one is Red Elm. I had a big tree taken down out at my shop, the guy said it was Elm. I completely forgot until you guys mentioned it, I threw a couple logs in with the other load to see how they split. As far as the other 2, soft maple seems about right but I haven't heard too much about Sassafras around here and Locust surprised me too, I thought I knew what those looked like, but you guys know better than me.

 

[metalfingers]

I could possibly be swayed to mulberry. Quite a bit of that stuff around as well.

Now that a few of you mentioned it, it could be mulberry. I grew up with mulberry trees all around my house but I never cut them down or saw any that big

 

[PA. Woodsman]

Now that a few of you mentioned it, it could be mulberry. I grew up with mulberry trees all around my house but I never cut them down or saw any that big

It should be easy to tell if it is Mulberry or Sassy, Sass is lighter and has that "root beer" smell to it, Mulberry would be heavier and really have not much odor to it.

Give it a smell, and pick it up, if it smells like root beer or even Pine Sol and is light it's Sassafras, if it is pretty heavy and not much smell it's Mulberry. I see the reddish tint to the bark and the end cuts look like Sassy to me....