# ID help



## pinky (Jul 30, 2015)

This piece is labelled ironwood. However, that could mean anything. I picked up alot of wood recently with South American origin. When I look up different South American Ironwoods, I'm not finding it. The piece is coated on all 6 sides with wax which might hinder IDing. End grain figure is pretty cool on this. @phinds

Reactions: EyeCandy! 1


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## phinds (Jul 30, 2015)

That is interesting, and fairly distinctive end grain, but with some 140 woods that use ironwood, even if it's one of them it will be tough to figure out. One thing in your favor if you know for sure it's from South America is that relatively few of the ironwoods are FROM S.A. Of course if you've already explored that avenue, it's not much help.

@Mr. Peet do you have any ideas?


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## Mr. Peet (Jul 30, 2015)

Looks a lot like several chunks of "Goncalo Aves", _Astronium _speices. Ive seen a few chunks of Dessert Ironwood, _Olneya tesota_, with the same gain patterns. Heavy waxed, how freshly cut was it?


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## DKMD (Jul 30, 2015)

Looks like olive to me, but that's just a WAG.


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## pinky (Jul 30, 2015)

I'm going to rule out DIW because it is 12" x 12" x 2" and there is not a single check or crack. Can DIW do that? Its heavy waxed and as far as when it was cut I can only speculate. I have reason to believe about 6 - 7 years ago. I'm also going to backtrack on a comment I made about South American. This lot did have a majority of wood from there, but actually there were some pieces from Asia and Africa, so it could be from anywhere.


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## phinds (Jul 30, 2015)

Mr. Peet said:


> Looks a lot like several chunks of "Goncalo Aves", _Astronium _speices.


That's interesting. I've never seen any goncalo alves that looked even remotely like that end grain. Do you have any pics of the goncalo alves you've seen that does look like that?


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## phinds (Jul 30, 2015)

DKMD said:


> Looks like olive to me, but that's just a WAG.


I agree that the end grain looks a lot like olive patterns but the face grain less so. Still, I'd say that's a good guess.

Pinky, you need to give us the density.


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## pinky (Jul 30, 2015)

I will tomorrow.


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## phinds (Jul 30, 2015)

pinky said:


> How do I do that?


measure each side in inches
multiply the three numbers together
divide by 144
get the weight in pounds
divide the pounds by the other number
tell us the result


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## pinky (Jul 31, 2015)

@phinds 
1.864 bd.ft.
9,75 lbs.
5.23 density
10 moisture reading


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## phinds (Jul 31, 2015)

I should have told you to multiply by 12 I guess. That's a density of 63lbs/cuft which is almost 1.0 relative density and that's pretty heavy. Exactly right for olive so I'm leaning toward olive The face grain doesn't look a lot like olive but COULD be olive. The end grain looks exactly like olive. The density is exactly right for olive.

SO ...

Uh, maybe it's olive but without a look under the wax I would say that's conclusive.


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## Kevin (Jul 31, 2015)

Does it smell like olives when you cut it?

Reactions: Agree 1


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## pinky (Jul 31, 2015)

Just came across another small piece with a tag under the wax that reads olea capensis subsp. macrocarpa

http://www.plantzafrica.com/plantnop/oleacapensis.htm

@phinds
@DKMD
@Mr. Peet
@Kevin

African olive also called black ironwood
You guys are good!!!

Reactions: Like 1


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## Kevin (Jul 31, 2015)

pinky said:


> Just came across another small piece with a tag under the wax that reads oleo capnsis subsp. macrocarpa
> 
> http://www.plantzafrica.com/plantnop/oleacapensis.htm
> 
> ...



I was just riding coattails lol.


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## DKMD (Jul 31, 2015)

Even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and again... I've got some 'African olive' blanks somewhere that look similar, so that's why I guessed that.


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## Mr. Peet (Jul 31, 2015)

I've had one piece of North African olive that looked like that, and might still. The Goncolo alves is in someone's kitchen floor now Paul. I lacked perspective and size on the sample and originally being S. America... well you know how some minds click.

Still a big piece of olive....


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