# mystery wood, very distinctive



## phinds (Jul 8, 2012)

This wood looks like it would be VERY easy to identify if you've ever seen it before:

[attachment=7582][attachment=7583]

a long, torn piece and an end grain shot


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## davidgiul (Jul 8, 2012)

Density? Odor? The open grain looks like a possible member of the Acacia family.


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## firemedic (Jul 8, 2012)

End grain looks like sugar cane :)


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## davidgiul (Jul 9, 2012)

rbaccus said:


> Balsa wood-----now whar's the prize.


Fins a madame ledoux and 12 monkeys and.............


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## phinds (Jul 10, 2012)

rbaccus said:


> Balsa wood-----now whar's the prize.



Hm ... I"m not all that familiar w/ balsa and I"ll have to look into it but the guy that sent me the pics didn't say anything about the characteristics and it's hard to be believe he would have overlooked something as notable as the exceedingly light weight of balsa. Also, I've never seen orange colored balsa.

I just checked my balsa page and I although the pores do look similar to this mystery wood, I think its defining characteristic is the white lines running through it and balsa seems to have none of that.

Do you have some balsa that looks like this, or can you point me to a site that does?

Thanks,

Paul


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## phinds (Jul 10, 2012)

firemedic said:


> End grain looks like sugar cane :)



I've never seen sugar cane ... does it have those white lines?


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## firemedic (Jul 10, 2012)

phinds said:


> I've never seen sugar cane ... does it have those white lines?



Yes, it does. It has orangy blondes just like that too. There is NO WAY it's sugar cane though. It's a segmented grass and extremely light when dried so can't imagine someone mistaking it for wood.

That does imply the possibility of it being in the grass family as opposed to it being a tree though.

edit: 
ps, did you see my mesg in the "wood id challenge" did you want a piece of that?


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## vtwood410 (Jul 10, 2012)

Hey guys, thank you for all of your help. I had emailed phinds with the pictures and he put me onto this site. The picture on the left showing the side grain is not the piece of wood I have (from the original thread post), just the picture on the right of the end grain. The wood is pretty soft, I can get my thumb nail into it pretty well (SG definitely lower than .4). It is certainly not as soft as balsa though, can't crush it with my fingers. It has a very similar smell to that of surf wax, which is why I was curious as to what it was. Here is a shot of the sides. Ignore the red, I accidentally nicked my finger. 

[attachment=7670]


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## firemedic (Jul 10, 2012)

Welcome!

Anything more you can tell us? Where did you find it perhaps?... what was it being used for?...


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