Wood and lumber guys , what kinda wood is this?

[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

[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. Attachment 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.