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I built the neck for my first guitar out of this. My mother in law gave it to me, telling me it was walnut. Since she worked in antiques for a long time I took her word for it. But building the neck with it, working it, and looking at it, I don't believe it is.
It is a hardwood. It has fairly large pores, and it works pretty well. It is also very stiff. The color, at least on my monitor, is accurate. The pics below are the neck blank I made up from the last of it. It is several pieces laminated together, because it was flatsawn, and I wanted it as quartered as I could get, so I cut it into strips, flipped it 90 degrees, and laminated it.
It makes IMHO an excellent neck. Very stiff and stable. The blank you see is for my next build. I know IDing wood from pictures, especially bad ones like these, can be dicey at best. But your best guess? Any help would be appreciated.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

looks more like oak to me

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

Hard to tell from pictures. Looks like Red Oak to me.

Ash ?

Looks like oak to me too. I don't know about American oaks, but the Euro variety has a noticeable sour smell when worked.

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Build log

My impression was oak also. Lots of furniture made from oak,and since your mother in law worked in antiques.......???
Tom

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A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything!!!

Thanks, guys. A lot of you mentioned oak. My impression is that oak is really hard wood. Hard to work, hard on saws and cutting tools, and hard to file. But I could be wrong about that. This wood, though a hardwood, and stiff, works relatively easily. It files beautifully. It's also really light weight. No smell when worked that I noticed(other than, lol, a woody smell). Could this still be oak?
The reasons I'd like to identify it fairly positively are that, firstly, I'd just like to know what to tell folk it is when they ask, but also, I'm new to this. It's my understanding that the way we learn about woods has a great deal to do with working it. I'm sure I'd recognize this if I came across it again. It'd be a shame to waste all that I've learned about it for lack of knowing what it is.
But I also know that posting pics of wood and saying "name this wood" isn't the most difinitive way of getting that answer. I know it's really hard to do this from pics.
Thanks for all your help. It's appreciated.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

Mike: Maybe if you tried to take closer pictures....??
Tom

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A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything!!!

I tried, but I have really crappy pocket sized digital camera, and it won't focus well enough to get a good, close in pic.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

Mike - If your camera is a higher resolution, say 5 or more megapixels, you could just crop the picture and resize it. It then might give enough of the closeness to see the grain pattern and color.

Good luck!

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Steve Walden
Aspiring Builder,
Bartlesville, OK

American Oaks smell pretty bad, too.

-jd

Thanks, Steve, I'll try that.
Here it is, best I can do. Probably not good enough.

Thanks everyone for your help. At this point, since I cannot get a pic with clear enough resolution to do any good, I'd ask you to stop. I'm wasting my time and yours, too. I'll just use it, since I know it to be a good neck wood. Perhaps later on in my journey into luthiery I'll find out what it is. Again, thanks to all of your for your patience and help.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

well it is hard to tell from the pictures, but if you were told that it was walnut and its works fairly easily its quite possible that its butternut. ive heard butternut refered to as white walnut they have an almost identical grain pattern, but the butternut is obviously much lighter in color. from what i can see in the pictures it looks like oak to me, but if it doenst work like oak then butternut may be a possibility.

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~shad peters

http://www.flickr.com/photos/petersinstruments/
http://petersinstruments.blogspot.com/
http://petersinstruments.com/

Mike, You can do a test to see if it is red oak by blowing smoke into the endgrain to see if it comes out the other end. If it does, then it is red oak. Hope this helps.

Thanks, Shad. I've been really thinking that it might be butternut, from all that I've read about it. But I've never seen or worked it either, so am not sure. I do, however, really think that it is not red oak. Everything I've read or heard about oak screams at me that this is not oak. It's too light, it saws and files too easily, etc. I've also seen the red oak at places like Lowes, and though the grain is really similar, the color is off. There is much more of a reddish hue to the oak. This stuff has a duller, almost pecan colored hue to it.
Mark, thank you for the tip, but I don't smoke, and would have no idea how to blow smoke through the pores without inhaling it first myself. But that info is good to know.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

Since you don't smoke Mike, You can still test it by putting it in water and blowing on one end. If it is oak, you will see bubbles. You don't have to drink the water to do this test or inhale smoke to do the other test.

Cool. The water test sounds interesting. But I'm near positive it's not oak.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

If you have a sense of smell, and if it is, indeed oak of any variety, you would smell it when you but, scrape, plane, sand, etc. Furthermore, oak tends to be heavy, and also springy. I know many people will insist that it is stiff, but oak is VERY springy. Hey, ship timbers are bent from this stuff! Beyond that, I'm sorry to say I can't help you.

I was looking at a piece of butternut. Its a pretty good match colorwise but does not have the strong grain lines of your sample. It of course cuts and machines just like walnut.

The "water test" will not work for all species of oak. Oak (ash, hickory, elm) are known as a "ring porous" wood -- meaning if you look at the end grain, each growth ring starts with a band of large, open vessels, and switches over to small fine vessels for the later part. Pretty easy to see.

Whereas walnuit (butternut, maple, mahogany) are known as "diffuse porous woods", having more-or-less even-sized, smallish vessels across the entire growth ring and no obvious "ring" of large, open vessels.

Doesn't identify your wood, but allows to rule out oak pretty easily.

Here are some shots of the end grain, as best I could get them.



If I understand what you're saying, this looks like ring-porous wood to me.
To me, it works too well, weighs too little, to be oak. But it does look like that is what it is. Thanks, all.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

Oak has very large rays that are distinctive, and quite visible on quartered surfaces. Absent the oak-like rays, add the workability and ring-porous structure, and I would vote for woods like catalpa, swamp ash, ailanthus (tree-of-heaven) or sassafras....just to name a few.
Sassafras does have a distinctive odor (root beer), so it should be easy to confirm or eliminate. Butternut is very soft and weak.
If it is antique wood, chestnut is another possibility.

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John

It is most definately antique. Never thought of chestnut, but that is indeed a possbility. And thanks to the info and pics on this site http://web.utk.edu/~mtaylo29/pages/Identifying%20Chestnut.htm I really believe that this is what I have here.
Thank you, John, and the rest of you for your help, indulgence, and patience.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

I've got some old chestnut from door frames, etc. that has a similar look to it. If it's lighter than oak, that may be what you've got.

Chestnut is a very good idea. I suggest making a habit of tasting wood, in the privacy of your own studio. Oaks are acidic, etc. Chestnut tastes / smells somewhat sharp and musty. You can compare your sample to the underside of an antique table, etc. and learn as you go. By the way, Chestnut makes an excellent neck.
Tom Thiel