# Ipe? Sold to me as Bolivian Rosewood.



## Lincoln Erickson (Dec 4, 2019)

I was sold some timber as Bolivian Rosewood but I think it is actually Ipe. I weighed a sample against some Jatoba and the mystery timber was 5oz and my Jatoba sample was 4.7 oz.

The lumber is 11 ft long and very straight grained. It doesn't flouresce nor does the dust in a test tube.

It is very dense and hard to cut like the Jatoba. I think that rules out any of the Mohognay species.

I got a good price so even if it turns out to be Ipe I am not upset.

Reactions: Like 1


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## phinds (Dec 4, 2019)

100% NOT Bolivian rosewood & nothing you show looks like ipe. Face grain is too coarse and the wrong color and the end grain shows pore strands (ipe is random pore distribution).

That end grain shot is good but to really tell anything I need a wider field of view and I have to know the size of the wood in the image. That is, is that circle 1/10" of wood, 1/2" of wood, what?


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## Lincoln Erickson (Dec 4, 2019)

The circle is a magnifier for my phone camera. It is about .25 of an inch. 

I am not great at smelling but i could not smell anything when I cut it as I can with the Jatoba.

Do you want a wider magnifies picture? I can try and pick up a magnifying glass of some type


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## phinds (Dec 4, 2019)

Lincoln Erickson said:


> The circle is a magnifier for my phone camera. It is about .25 of an inch.
> 
> I am not great at smelling but i could not smell anything when I cut it as I can with the Jatoba.
> 
> Do you want a wider magnifies picture? I can try and pick up a magnifying glass of some type


Yes, I would need a wider field of view to get any further. If by magnifying glass you mean something several inches across, that won't do it. They are typically about 3X and that's not much help, although perhaps you can get some combination of magnifying glass, camera and camera magnifier to give a useful image. You can also just send me a cutoff and I'll process it.


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## Lincoln Erickson (Dec 4, 2019)

I can send you a piece. I am not in a hurry. I have a slice about 4 x 1 x 1 with the long part being endgrain.


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## phinds (Dec 4, 2019)

Lincoln Erickson said:


> I can send you a piece. I am not in a hurry. I have a slice about 4 x 1 x 1 with the long part being endgrain.


that won't work. I need something at least 4" long along the grain and 2" wide across the end grain, and at least 1/2" thick. A bit bigger than that is preferable.


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## Lincoln Erickson (Dec 4, 2019)

I can get that cut tonight. I am out of town till Tuesday but I can ship it next Wednesday. Would you PM me the address to ship it to?


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## phinds (Dec 4, 2019)

You have to do one more post before PM'ing opens up to you.


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## Lincoln Erickson (Dec 4, 2019)

Thanks so much for your help.


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## phinds (Dec 4, 2019)

Hm ... that's odd. You now have 5 messages but PM still doesn't show up for you. Maybe the server takes a while to catch up.


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## phinds (Dec 4, 2019)

Lincoln Erickson said:


> Would you PM me the address to ship it to?


Done. No hurry, but please make sure to include a note referencing this thread.


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## Tony (Dec 4, 2019)

Lincoln, I have closed this thread for now. Please take a minute to review our rules and then make an Introduction post. Thanks, Tony


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## ripjack13 (Dec 4, 2019)

It is now opened....

Reactions: Thank You! 1


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## phinds (Dec 16, 2019)

@Lincoln Erickson I just got the piece. At first glance it's more consistent w/ ipe than I expected, but I'll know more after I process the end grain.


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## Mr. Peet (Dec 16, 2019)

phinds said:


> @Lincoln Erickson I just got the piece. At first glance it's more consistent w/ ipe than I expected, but I'll know more after I process the end grain.



Most of the 'Ipe' group has a good bit of lapacho in the wood, often seen in the yellowish green sawdust...


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## phinds (Dec 18, 2019)

Lincoln, I've done the end grain processing but have been too tired to do anything with it. I'm having extensive oral surgery tomorrow and I slept really badly last night, probably because I'm anxious about it. I REALLY don't look forward to 3 hours in a dentists chair with my mouth propped open and somebody digging holes inside it.

I'm likely to be out of it for a couple of days so it may be a while before I get any further.

The wood looks more like ipe than I expected, partially because the color is nowhere near what is show in the pic at the top of this thread (although to be fair your end grain shot does show the right color --- I was looking more at the face grain for color).

The end grain looks a bit like some ipe (I was wrong about ipe always having purely random pore distribution) but somewhat more like a Eucalypt. I need to do some serious sanding on it and see if the dust shows ipe. As Mark pointed out, it's quite distinctive.

Anyway ... later.


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## Lincoln Erickson (Dec 18, 2019)

Thanks for taking a look. I feel you on the surgery. I have a lot of root canals and a few implants so I feel your pain.

No worries on trying to finish off the analysis any time soon.

Thanks again.


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## phinds (Dec 21, 2019)

@Lincoln Erickson I've completed my analysis. The sanding proved for sure that it was not ipe but I had actually already concluded it was a eucalypt because although I did find a few areas of ipe samples that had a small amount of diagonal pore strands they were few and far between and this wood has them everywhere. I'm so confident that I've put it on my web site as an unknown eucalypt:


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## Lincoln Erickson (Dec 21, 2019)

Wow! Thanks for the anylysis. I could get 2 more boards. Does anyone have a sense of what these would be worth per bf?


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## phinds (Dec 21, 2019)

As an unknown Eucalypt it's impossible to say. You should only get them if you feel the price is good for whatever you want to use them for. If you're thinking about reselling them, I have no idea.


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