# More pallet wood



## norman vandyke (Jul 29, 2015)



Reactions: Like 1


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## barry richardson (Jul 29, 2015)

Cool looking stuff! The trouble with pallet wood from Latin America and overseas, is that they use anything and everything to make them, and many of the woods may not be marketed for export otherwise, so very obscure and difficult to identify. I found some beautiful rosewood looking stuff in a pallet that was used for Mexican tile, never did figure out what it was, but included it in a little table I made, looked great....


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## norman vandyke (Jul 29, 2015)

This stuff is very light in weight. I do know it's from Thailand and it is very nice to look at. I think I'll stick it in my pretty wood box. Lol


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## norman vandyke (Aug 10, 2015)

@phinds , mind if I send a sample of this your way for id? I keep seeing more of this in my outings to the pallet pile and it might be useful info to have.


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## phinds (Aug 20, 2015)

norman vandyke said:


> @phinds , mind if I send a sample of this your way for id? I keep seeing more of this in my outings to the pallet pile and it might be useful info to have.


Norm, just got the two pieces. This one, I knew right out of the box, is rengas. I'll still do my fine sanding on the end grain for confirmation, but I'll be VERY surprised if it is not rengas. The other piece doesn't ring any bells yet, but I'll check it out.


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## norman vandyke (Aug 20, 2015)

Rengas, really? I pay far too much attention to face grain patterns to be good at this. I figured it was another variation of tiger wood. I assume by "this one," you mean the red one. Lol


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## phinds (Aug 20, 2015)

norman vandyke said:


> Rengas, really? I pay far too much attention to face grain patterns to be good at this. I figured it was another variation of tiger wood. I assume by "this one," you mean the red one. Lol


Well, it's the only one it this thread as far as I can see. All three of the end grain shots are of rengas.


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## norman vandyke (Aug 20, 2015)

Oh, cool. The other is one I was just very curious about. Thinking about making keys for a xylophone from that.


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## phinds (Aug 23, 2015)

Norm, the first piece was clearly rengas, right out of the box as I said in the previous post, but I went ahead with the end grain analysis anyway and it's conclusive. Your wood has more of the dark bands than I am used to seeing and they are slightly lighter in color, but there's no mistaking what it is.






For the second wood, my first thought out of the box was that the general look and feel (color, weight, porosity, graininess) says andiroba but then I did the fine sanding on the end grain and the details say no way it could be andiroba. BUT ... end grain looks a lot like the mahogany family so I checked out sapele and sure enough, with one significant exception it is a dead ringer for sapele.

It has the pore density (sparse side of medium), pore distribution (diffuse, regular), occasional pore multiples, parenchyma bands that are not marginal and are highly variable in how many there are in a given area, the color is right, the graininess is right, the weight is right, EVERYTHING is right. Except ...

The one thing that really bothered me about an ID of sapele is that the parenchyma bands appear to peter out in a way that is identical with Khaya species (African mahogany) but other characteristics say there's no way this is Khaya. Sapele bands, as far as I know, do not peter out this way.

SO ... I look again very carefully and what I find is two things. First, the appearance of "petering out" in your mystery wood is deceptive. What the parenchyma bands do is that sometimes they merge in a way that makes it look like a thin band has petered out when really it has just gone from a group to a single very thin band, and (2) the actions of the bands in my known sapele pieces are a bit different than what I had previously believe and are in fact somewhat similar to that in your mystery wood, although not absolutely identical.

It's still slightly bothersome that your piece deviates (even if only subtly) from "normal" sapele in that one characteristic (parenchyma bands), but I also did some more poking around and I definitely can't find anything else that comes close to being another candidate for your wood's ID.

So my conclusion is that your wood is definitely sapele. Probably.

Reactions: Like 1


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## Mr. Peet (Aug 23, 2015)

Paul,

Let me see that questionable "Sapele" next visit. I assume all the pictures of the two comparisons are at the same magnification. If that is the case, I don't like the size difference in pores, however, I don't know the common range for pore size anyhow.

Did the end grain colors stay the same or did they darken a bit after sanding Norm's sample?


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## phinds (Aug 23, 2015)

Mr. Peet said:


> Paul,
> 
> Let me see that questionable "Sapele" next visit.


will do


> I assume all the pictures of the two comparisons are at the same magnification.


yep


> If that is the case, I don't like the size difference in pores, however, I don't know the common range for pore size anyhow.


interesting point. I didn't really notice the pore size so much as the density. What I didn't mention in the analysis, because I decided (possibly incorrectly) that it was with the range of normal variation, is that the pore density of Norm's piece is slightly less than any of my sapele samples.



> Did the end grain colors stay the same or did they darken a bit after sanding Norm's sample?


It did not darken particularly but I don't get why that would be significant since the lightness of the color is very dependent on how rough/smooth a piece is and there is ALWAYS some apparent darkening after fine sanding because of the way a smooth piece reflects light as opposed to what a rough piece does, and often a significant amount of darkening (but this has nothing to do with the wood, just the way light works)


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## Mr. Peet (Aug 23, 2015)

The color question, no big deal, just trying to form a mental picture with color, and imagine the other perspectives. Have a good morning.


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## norman vandyke (Aug 23, 2015)

Well, gang. We have a mystery on our hands. Lol! Good thing I didn't send all of my mystery wood at once. I definitely could but I'm betting they would fill a mfrb.


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