Who's good with woodgrain ID?

Just made this shelf out of a random piece of rough-cut hardwood I found at the shop.  I thought it might be maple left over from an old project, but it didn't come out of the planer looking like the burly maple I got from that tree.  This is dense and pretty hard.  Weight compares to oak or hard maple.  Hardness is medium-hard.  Fingernail doesn't dent it.

Birch maybe?  Seems harder than birch.

First two photos are fresh out of the planer, one taken at full exposure, the other a little darkened to show the grain better.

This is after a really light stain and one coat of poly.

Also, in case it helps, There was nearly no odor from the wood when it was planed and sanded.

I'll ask Dad after the hurricane has passed.  He might want a distraction from cleaning up from the storm

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

There are so many variations of a given species wood grain that it's difficult.  

  I've probably got that exact pattern on some piece of my hard maple flooring  

For example this is hard maple against Black walnut  

Some call it fiddle back , others call it Zebra stripe.   Technically it's all maple   

I would think Birch based on looking at it, but it could also be Ash or Poplar. 

EDIT: I've also seen some pine that looks almost exactly like that, but the fact that it didn't have any smell kind of rules pine out. 

In reply to mtn :

Birch will be a little softer and lighter in weight than maple.  The OP's did riot ion sounds like hard Maple with no smell and the hardness he mentioned. 

In reply to mtn :

I would think ash and especially poplar are both too soft to be contenders here. 

Looks like maple to me.  Here's one online guide, there are others out there.  https://www.wood-database.com/common-us-hardwoods/

barefootcyborg5000 said:

In reply to mtn :

I would think ash and especially poplar are both too soft to be contenders here. 

Unless it's really old, I doubt Ash... simply because they dont get big enough to get a 10" slab, especially since these are flat-sawn.  It's also much harder than any ash I've worked with.

In reply to frenchyd :

My floors are Norway Maple and look much like that maple with a little less figuring.  If this one is maple, it certainly didn't come from the trunks I cut last year.

mtn said:

I would think Birch based on looking at it, but it could also be Ash or Poplar. 

EDIT: I've also seen some pine that looks almost exactly like that, but the fact that it didn't have any smell kind of rules pine out. 

Definitely not pine from the heft and hardness.  Highly doubt poplar simply from color and hardness

I was gonna say maple, but if anyone here could score a nice piece of ash, it's Curtis.

1988RedT2 said:

I was gonna say maple, but if anyone here could score a nice piece of ash, it's Curtis.

you win the internet for today

My first take was ash as well, but birch would be next guess.

1988RedT2 said:

I was gonna say maple, but if anyone here could score a nice piece of ash, it's Curtis.

I don't kiss and tell, but...

This would be so much better if her name were Ashley.  But it's Wendy.  AKA "Hot for Teacher."

So we're going with "Mash" or Ashple"

That sure looks like Birch. 
 

I'd rule out Poplar. On a slab that size, you'd almost certainly have some wild color gradations in the grain. 
 

The reason it looks a little different than Birch usually does is the cut. 
 

We are all used to Birch veneer that is rotary cut. It make the grain look tighter and straighter like this:

But yours is flat sawn. The grain of flat sawn Birch looks more like this:

That looks a lot like the bitch plywood I build speaker cabs out of so that's my guess

I'm leaning toward birch as well.  My guess is that it was just a particularly dense tree and/or significantly aged lending it a density and hardness I'm not used to.

I'm also not used to seeing birch that big as a flat-sawn slab, but they might have been bigger whenever this was cut down.

Thoughts on beech?  I know it normally has the little "hyphens" in the grain, but this site also suggests that flat-sawn pieces tend to be bland and lack that feature.

The color is dead-on for beech, but I think that even the flat-sawn pieces that I've see still have some faint rays.   Beech does get pretty big in places, though.  

What does the edge grain look like?

In reply to psteav (Forum Supporter) :

I'll get a picture tomorrow.  The rest of the stock is at work.

But here is the finished shelf.  My living room now has maple, walnut, cherry, hickory, chestnut, and whatever this is.  And pine if you count the door casings.

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

If you're going to include it in the photograph, you must first clean that floor grille.  Other than that, everything looks lovely.

In reply to 1988RedT2 :

Scientific dust-settling study.  Can't disturb.

Pictures of the endgrain.  Disregard the red spot.  That's paint that came off the chop saw blade.