Little help identifying some wood?

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buck futta

Smoke Blower
Original poster
Apr 9, 2010
86
15
Coeur d'Alene, ID
My buddy got some free "hickory" from school today. The guy who brought thought he had four trees, but three of them turned out to be Elm. He was pretty sure that it's hickory, but I'm going to say that he is a little un-knowledgeable when it comes to wood.

We burnt some up, right next to some store-bought hickory and they smell really similar. Allot of it looks pretty much the same as well. Just want to make sure that it's what I think it is. I have more pictures I can upload if these are not enough to tell.

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Yea he left the elm at home when he was told we couldn't use it. Brought what he's pretty sure is hickory instead... Just trying to figure out if it really is hickory.
 
I was gonna say that it's hickory or maybe peacan it's one of those two I'm sure.
 
Split a piece and see if its really 'stringy'. Doesnt look like the rough bark hickory I'm used to, but the branches are smooth, and there are other types of hickory trees out there as well.

I always have a tough time identifying woods unless I see them in their natural state.. Hickory you can tell by the leaves, bark, and their nuts when they drop
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Are the 2 top pieces freshly cut? The grain should be pretty colored on a fresh cut/split piece of hickory. Not all hickory is stringy...but shagbark is. But theres also shellbark and bitternut i think
 
That looks exactly like the hickory I have that I cut up into chunks and it IS hickory smelling so I know mine is the real thing...
 
Thanks, it sure smells like hickory, and when split it's a dead giveaway. When we started splitting them into smaller chunks we found a termite queen.
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Anyone ever smoked termite? More protein? We're going to bag up the chunks to kill them off overnight, I'd hate to see a good 30 lbs of wood go to waste though.
 
Looks just like the two Hickory kitchens I was talked into making, many years ago.


Bearcarver
 
Hickory cabinets and floor sure are beautiful though. IMHO, Oak is too "plain", hickory has "character". If I ever build my own home I'll have hickory floor/cabinets in the kitchen.
 
Some people love it, but most don't. The colors are so variable. The same board can have colors ranging from as dark as Walnut to as light as Maple. I skipped cut, and arranged the colors to flow gradually from those extremes to make it look nice. I cut all of the rails, stiles, and door parts, and laid them out on the shop floor----Then juggled stuff around. It was a pain, but I didn't want to sell something ugly---All my work was from "word-of-mouth". I looked at some of the big cabinet company's Hickory kitchens. They didn't care what went where, like a drawer base with two dark drawer fronts, and one light one, or a raised door panel with half of the panel dark & half light-------UGLY ! IMO.

The people I made the Hickory kitchens for absolutely loved them, but I think Hickory looks better in little pieces, smoking, under a nice slab of Bacon. (IMO)
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Bearcarver
 
We remodeled our kithcen about 3 years ago and and had hickory cabinets put in to replace the old plain looking oak cabinets. They are absolutly beautiful. We are thinking about putting a hickory floor in our faimly room also. I love the color differences in the wood. To me it has great character.
 
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