[brianinpa]

Lets play a game: Name that lumber.

I got this lumber from a pallet at work and I have no idea what kind of wood it is. I have looked through my encyclopedia of wood and came up with Australian Blackwood or Australian Silky Oak but am still uncertain. It could also be a mahogany, but it looks too red. I am in the US, but we receive products manufactured around the world so it is really hard to narrow down a country of origin. The wood is very dense: I poked it with a pocket knife and it barely nicked it. It cuts nicely but it makes the planer work a little harder. The grain is very tight and there are a lot of red, light brown, and pink colorations and there is even some purple. When I ran it through the planer the chips looked red. Here are some photos:

I really need to get a better camera! I have no idea what this is so give me your thoughts…

 

[brianinpa]

I certainly am not a photographer: I'm too shaky no matter what I try to do. I too was pretty sure that it isn't the silky oak becasue of how tough it is, and all my searching shows that silky oak is somewhat soft, but it looks a lot like it. I suspect that these pallets came from China so anything is possible.

 

[brianinpa]

Thanks for the help. The photos and descriptions of Lyptus and Jatoba really resemble this wood, but I found some close up photos (better than mine) the draw me closer to Lyptus. The endgrain of my wood does not compare toe the end grain of the Jatoba. I stumbled over this really great website for exotic wood. This is a lot better than the book I have. These two types of wood aren't even shown in my Encyclopedia of Wood.

Again thanks for your help and opinions.