South American wood species

[demondeacon]

I am helping a neighbor build a barn door from 80 year old wood from south America. It is a beautiful red color and a magnet for splinters. Here is what it looks like after running through the planer. Could it be mahogany, rose wood, or something else? I plan to make some boxes with the cutoffs.

 

[demondeacon]

Here is a better picture of the wood from doing a dry fit before glueup. Wondering if it could be bloodwood aaswell

 

[FredP]

Sapele, maybe?

 

[old and in the way]

Dave:

The color characteristics appear to be those of jatoba, or what Americans call "Brazilian cherry". If the wood is very hard, and a bit difficult to work with hand tools, that might be as good a guess as any. If you have any boards that have a delineated sapwood line (like walnut), it would add credence to the guess of jatoba.

The "80 year old" aspect throws me a bit, as jatoba has seen popularity in this country, mostly as flooring material, only in the last 30 years. Today there are better conservation and forest management practices in use, thanks to heightened awareness and various international programs, but considering the lumber practices of the past, where it was not uncommon to clear an acre of land to have access to 4 mahogany trees, one wonders what was done with all of the trees that were not mahogany. Perhaps this was one of them, at which point it is anybody's guess.

FWIW.
Tone

 

[demondeacon]

There was modest sap wood on a few of the pieces that I cut off, so you may be correct with Jatoba. Let me explain the 80 year old comment. One of my former neighbors, who has long since passed away, spent some time as a young man in South America before he married. While he was away, he shipped home quite a bit of wood. The wood sat dormant here in Wilmington for some 70 years in a shed. His house was later knocked down for a rebuild and my current neighbor "rescued" the wood about 10 years ago and it has sat outdoors since. under cover. The planks are in surprisingly good shape. They were planed long ago and most of the boards were pretty darn straight and flat. I just had to trim the edges.

I don't think it is sapele as the grain is different than the sapele I have used in the past, and this wood does not seem quite as heavy. The edges are quite brittle and I spent about 30 minutes last evening pulling a half dozen splinters out of my hands.

 

[Bill Clemmons]

I would lean toward mahogany, but which one is the question. Take a look at Honduran Mahogany on this site. Hobbit House.

 

[Roy G]

Any rosewood I have worked with has a perfume like scent.

Roy G

 

[Oka]

+1 Brazilian Cherry

 

[demondeacon]

+1 Brazilian Cherry

No scent that my old nose picks up. The saw dust is like dirt from Mars. Burnt orange.

 

[woodlaker2]

I believe Sapele is from Africa.

 

[Oka]

Sapele is from Africa, This is Jatoba - Brazilian Cherry

 

[cyclopentadiene]

I am thinking the two to the left are Sapele flat sawn and Sapele rift sawn. The other three look like jotoba. They all look similar but the joyoba is a little more dense. Both are great to work with.