Wood and lumber guys , what kinda wood is this?

[RU shooter]

186685186682We got this heavy pallet in the at work that our steel comes in on and noticed the unusual grain pattern on it any guess what it is ? 186682

[Lloyd Smale]

could be maple.

[billyb]

Hard to tell the color of the heart wood but look's like purple heart, is it a purple color?

[RU shooter]

Hard to tell the color of the heart wood but look's like purple heart, is it a purple color?
I added a closer pic Purple ? Don't think but I'm color blind so not sure what color things truely are.

[billyb]

could be Sycamore with all the flecks

[Rick Hodges]

could be oak as well...especially if it is used for hauling steel. I have a table with quarter sawn oak with the same grain pattern. 186686

[Wayne Smith]

Coming in from overseas - I'm guessing Rubberwood. Very hard, strong, light colored, with a rowed grain.

[RU shooter]

Coming in from overseas - I'm guessing Rubberwood. Very hard, strong, light colored, with a rowed grain.
noooooooo it's all US steel coils are slit galzanized and sheeted and then put on timber pallets the entire process in sourced local in the western pa (Pittsburgh ) region a local lumber mill makes the pallets so the wood is cut local also so its Pa Ohio or WVa trees

[square butte]

Looks like Sycamore to me

[Teddy (punchie)]

HI RU

This is a very rough question.

The darker heart wood and lighter sap wood there are only two in western PA that come to mind. Cherry and walnut, walnut with steel in the tree???

The light wood looks like maple but they are both hard to see. Send me some pics and maybe able to ID. I have cut a lot of firewood over the last 40 years. Darn I'm getting old or starting to.

Teddy tvjr42@gmail.com

[Bulldogger]

It looks like a pallet that shouldn't be thrown away or left out on the loading dock, is what it looks like. Save that wood! You'll find a use for it.
BDGR

[XDROB]

Might be some work ,but source it back . Find out who made the pallet. Looks nice though. I'm always looking at different woods and grains to find the perfect setting of grips for my 1911s.

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[Idaho45guy]

186688

[RU shooter]

HI RU

This is a very rough question.

The darker heart wood and lighter sap wood there are only two in western PA that come to mind. Cherry and walnut, walnut with steel in the tree???

The light wood looks like maple but they are both hard to see. Send me some pics and maybe able to ID. I have cut a lot of firewood over the last 40 years. Darn I'm getting old or starting to.

Teddy tvjr42@gmail.com

thank you for your offer but I do believe it is indeed sycamore. I googled sycamore board picture and am almost certain that's what it is .

[RU shooter]

It looks like a pallet that shouldn't be thrown away or left out on the loading dock, is what it looks like. Save that wood! You'll find a use for it.
BDGR Ha I put a save for me tag on it yesterday when I found it . I'm thinking I have a knife that needs some new scales at home ! It's a shame though how much nice hardwood I see on all those pallets . That timber in the pic is 4x4 x10' long if only it was wide enough for a rifle stock it be real nice .

Thanks all , Tim

[Geezer in NH]

Looks like the light one may be maple

The darker one looks like a cheap water stained 2x4 you find at home depot.

[375supermag]

Hi...

I would bet it is oak.
When I ran a receiving dock for a boiler manufacturer some years ago, all the sheet steel, plate steel and boiler tubes came in on flat bed trucks with oak blocking.

[wcp4570]

The lite color wood looks like sycamore no guess on the darker woods, it could be almost any species. Just can't see the detail in it. At any rate that's a nice score. With the color and grain figure it would make some very attractive segmented turned bowls.

wcp

[RU shooter]

Ohhhh the lower timber I didn't even notice it was in the pic yeah that's just oak with a strip of moisture barrier paper on top of it was wondering about the upper one

[bearcove]

Top one is white oak the bottom one is black Walnut. I think. If I could smell a shaving I could be sure. But my smellivision is still broke.

The walnut looks like a small tree, if you look at the bottom of it the sapwood , the light part, is probably very thin.

Its common to use small trees for pallets. Too small to saw good boards out of.

[Plate plinker]

whiter one is most likely 1/4 sawn oak
the darker is sycamore or poplar or some other inferior softer wood.

[Duckiller]

Evergreens are soft woods. All hard woods have flat leaves. Some hard woods aren't very hard. Poplar is used for a lot of trim in houses. It is straight grained and mills very nicely. Grew up on a farm where we burned it in the fireplace. Was shocked when I found that most trim that was painted was poplar.

[Hardcast416taylor]

At a stamping plant that I worked at for awhile we got both roll steel as well as pre cut pieces in on hardwood pallets. I remember 1 time I found a pallets main supports made of `birds eye` maple. I`ve also seen some `killer` grained oak and ash come through and once some `Tiger striped` maple that I tore the pallet apart for.Robert

[gwpercle]

If the pallet came from the US , it's probably Sycamore . In the manufacture of church pews we called it poor man's maple, church's that couldn't afford Maple could usually afford Sycamore, it was the least expensive of woods we could get. It stained and finished nicely. It looks a lot like Maple but it never has "birds eyes" like some maples do. Hard to tell apart .
If the pallet was from some foreign country .....all bets are off.

[country gent]

A lot of our coils pallets that came in from overseas for tinplate were mahogany and heavy lumber at that 2x6s for tops and bottoms and 4x6 runners. When they came in the wood workers grabbed them up quick. The pallets from others were oak

[XDROB]

Foreign country: Giant Poison Ivy. Heard a story about a guy burning pallets. Ended up in hospital in respotary failure. Supposedly pallet was made some kind of giant poison ivy tree.? It was all inside his lungs from the smoke.

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[jonp]

Most heavy pallet stuff I've seen is oak unless it is foreign made then it could be about anything heat treated from across the ocean

[jonp]

Evergreens are soft woods. All hard woods have flat leaves. Some hard woods aren't very hard. Poplar is used for a lot of trim in houses. It is straight grained and mills very nicely. Grew up on a farm where we burned it in the fireplace. Was shocked when I found that most trim that was painted was poplar.

Cheap, plentiful, straight grained and easy to work with and dries hard. Poplar is very popular for painted trim and molding

[bearcove]

Yep but not much in Pa to my knowledge

[wv109323]

Some of it looks like beech and one piece of oak.
The weight also would help to identify. If there is a noticeable difference in weight what I am seeing as beech could be sycamore.
Very unlikely to be quarter saw oak. Quarter sawing is not used to produce pallet material. Quarter sawing is not efficient in producing lumber. It was only used for decoration.

[RU shooter]

I know difficult to see grain in those pics but in person it looks just like this : and this is sycamore Thanks all
186797

[bearcove]

not the picture but previous post, but a lot of wood has rays like the pic

Well I will dispute that. If you have a small tree and cut a slab off flip it cut a slab off. that is waste. If you have 8" left you can cut 2" 4" and have 2 left. The 4x4s will have 1/4sawn grain on 2 faces. Depends on how you cut it. I'm just an hobby sawyer but we have had a sawmill for 20 years. If you cut this way and can cut out the heart the 4x4s will dry straighter. If you just 1/4 the log they will curl in 2 directions making your usable length much shorter. 5' post aren't so good.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

I have no idea about the purple stained runner?
The light colored runner looks like Sugar maple, I've cut(chain saw) a lot of sugar maple.

I've never ever seen sycamore

[Plate plinker]

I am sure now that the purple stuff is poplar the amish use that for church benches. I remember seeing a new one that color and remarking about the color. Was promptly told that it will change color as it ages.

[tomme boy]

Need a close up of the grain. But look Sycamore. If I could smell it that would make a difference. But since we can't, it is all guesses.

I had some birch one time that looked like it too sooooo

[MaryB]

Lot of ash going into pallets with the emerald ash borer killing trees. Plus cottonwood(stinks!), and elm that is dying off from dutch elm. Elm kind of has that pattern too! I have 2 oak pallets to tear apart, I need to get a small bench planer to clean them up to make stuff from.

[Lloyd Smale]

oak is probably the most used wood to make pallets out of
could be oak as well...especially if it is used for hauling steel. I have a table with quarter sawn oak with the same grain pattern. 186686

[w5pv]

It could be the board that the ole gal used that was off the out house

[KCSO]

We have gotten pallets of everything from Cottonwood to Paduk in pallets. The Asian pallets can be of really fine woods rubberwood, paduk, ect. My brother in law is the wood expert and he sorts and saves the better woods for our small projects. Knife handles, grips tool handles small boxes and shelves.

[Wayne Smith]

White oak turns purple/black when exposed to iron/steel. That's how blackening works with white Oak.

[thxmrgarand]

I can only make a guess from the photos. Photos are not all that good for identifying wood. But my guess is beech, and since I am guessing I will specify American beech.

[Beerd]

Need a close up of the grain. But look Sycamore. If I could smell it that would make a difference. But since we can't, it is all guesses.

I had some birch one time that looked like it too sooooo

pics of the end grain would be good too.
..

[Chief]

if somebody said Sycamore, they got it correct...

[swheeler]

Looks just like the Sycamore stocks Remington put on their 788's;-)

[quail4jake]

Maple, hard and fancy...or Sycamore..

[iomskp]

If the mill is local why not call them and ask.

Regards Trevor

[Multigunner]

Can't tell by looking at it in its present condition.

Sycamore is nice wood, called Lace wood when used to line dresser drawers.

We had a truly huge sycamore behind the house when I was a youngster. When it died it rotted out real fast. The trunk stood for a long time. It was hollow and big enough to have built a one room Keebler elf house out of.

My little brother and I used to shoot the sycamore balls with his Crosman M1 carbine airgun. That was one deadly accurate BB gun.

[Beau Cassidy]

That is quartersawn sycamore, I believe. Any purple discoloration could come from things like nails or spalting. I have some absolutely stunning quartersawn spalted sycamore in the garage and these pictures look similar.

[RU shooter]

That is quartersawn sycamore, I believe. Any purple discoloration could come from things like nails or spalting. I have some absolutely stunning quartersawn spalted sycamore in the garage and these pictures look similar. I believe you are correct and as I stated earlier that bottom timber is a piece of oak with a piece of moisture barier paper staples to the top of it thus the purple hue . Again thanks all I cut a chunk off it for some knife scales in the future .

Tim

[maxreloader]

Rock Maple or Sycamore

[myg30]

Any wood from over seas should have a stamp on it. Every piece marked. All our skids and crates, boxs from over seas have a heavy ink stamp.

Mike

[gwpercle]

I know difficult to see grain in those pics but in person it looks just like this : and this is sycamore Thanks all
186797
That's Sycamore all right , I'm looking at some I was going to make hand gun grips out of, scraps from the pew making shop, it looks exactly like the photo. Going to make some grips for my AMT Hardballer , when I get aroundtoit.
Gary

[mozeppa]

could be anything.....but for my guess the lighter wood is birdseye maple.

[historicfirearms]

Its sycamore.

[Drm50]

My guess would be black walnut, top- hard Maple middle, can't see bottom well enough to guess.

[Ron in PA]

At work we get 55 gals drums of motor oil on pallets that looks like the same wood. The pallets are white and red oak.

[tomme boy]

The wood is sycamore. This ferro rod is not mine but a guy that makes them on another forum. And this is Sycamore and micarta that he made it out of.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v21/tommeboy/IMG_3559_zpstdilaa89.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/tommeboy/media/IMG_3559_zpstdilaa89.jpg.html)

[jonp]

Any wood from over seas should have a stamp on it. Every piece marked. All our skids and crates, boxs from over seas have a heavy ink stamp.

Mike

All the overseas pallets I've seen are just stamped "HT" for heat treated which is required for import/export