BoxO'Wood scraps (Wood source) ID SOLVED!

So I was really lazy and bought a box of wood scraps from “Woodchucks Wood” on Amazon. I likely won’t do it again if I can get motivated to find a local place to get scraps from, but I’m pleased with the variety and am happy with the box overall. I’m not sure what all of it is, but was really happy with all the thin Black Walnut. Three thicker pieces were warped, but the rest is usable. (I also bought a strip of purple heart from the same seller.)

Anyone know what the really porous, wormy kinda stuff is (3rd and 4th pic.)? Don’t know if it’ll work for detail laser stuff, but maybe work as a veneer. It’s pretty though and I imagine the grain is gorgeous once finished.

The color is way off in my crappy cellphone pics.


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Love the purple heart, i hear it chars really easily and holds up really well afterwards (might be good for a lower powered etching?)

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Yes, on my PRU I did some purple heart very nicely on an inlay test

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The stuff in pics 3 and 4 looks like it might, might, be some kind of palm, though it’s hard to tell – it does have that kind of stringy, fibrous grain though. Looks like it could end up really interesting regardless – nice selection of wood all in all, thanks for showing us!

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The wormy stuff looks like edge-sawn chipboard to me.

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Good guess, but pretty sure it’s not chipboard, at least not any I’ve ever seen before. The long end is one continuous piece and some of the grain runs the entire length of the board. It’s about 6" wide as well so that’d be a really thick piece of chipboard.

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At some point in the past, I have seen massive chipboard beams. Similar to glu-lam. They were used for architectural details to add visual interest. It really does look like that to me, though I could easily be wrong.

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Check the end grain. If there are very distinguishable growth rings then you know it’s solid wood. Bamboo however is a grass and will not show rings.

Comparing this against photos of other woods available from the same place on Amazon, this looks like it could be Teak or Brazilian Cherry. It’s just hard to tell because it’s rough split and not cut/sanded.

Here’s a website with photo samples and verbal descriptions of all sorts of woods:

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Thansk guys, I think it’s a combination of all the above :slight_smile: I was convinced it was some kind of palm and I’m pretty sure it’s an engineered veneer product. I think it’s a form of Black Palm veneer. I’ve emailed the seller and hopefully he will confirm it though. Don’t know if it will be of much use for a laser, but it’ll be fun trying.

https://www.certainlywood.com/images-menu.php?item=BLK%20PALM%201402

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I could be wrong, but the porous stuff looks like trim from one of the composite lumber types. All referred to around here as gluelam, but apparently in trade that’s limited to individual boards that are finger-jointed for length and laminated for width and depth. There are a bunch of laminated types based on veneers or “strands” that aren’t just OSB. A littlle research says all the billets of this stuff are trimmed to size, so that could be the offcut.

If that’s true, you might want to worry about what it’s glued with.

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I don’t know, looking at Woodchuck’s Amazon page, everything they offer is a solid wood for woodworking. I’m not seeing any manmade product.

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I searched out everything they sell on Etsy, Amazon etc. and I didn’t see any manmade stuff either. One site said he deals in solid wood, but I didn’t see anything that came close to the veneer I received. He did saw he can get plywood or specialty stuff though so who knows. Hopefully he responds to my email, the suspense is killing me lol

Not sure if “the wormy stuff” is engineered lumber, but if it is, it looks like Parallam, or parallel strand lumber (PSL). Similar to OSB but in beam form. The fibers are parallel and laminated together with adhesive. It is my understanding the glue is similar to what is used in plywood, so should not be a problem.
A glue-lam is a little different; usually made up of laminated pieces of lumber for large or arched spans. I heard them called “church beams”, as this is a common use for them.
Also, there is laminated veneer lumber (LVL) which are used for beams (or posts) and are made up of veneer and epoxy layers sort of like a plywood beam.
What you have looks too loose to be palmwood veneer, but then again I don’t know why a PSL would get cut in a way to look like this.

I agree, it does look too loose compared to the palm veneer I saw on the internet. It’s a lot darker than the PSL I found, but the grain does look the same. (The dark layers are the same color as black walnut.) I haven’t found any PSL cut in the same way, but doesn’t mean they don’t. The mystery continues :slight_smile:

Part of what I’m basing my guess on is the off-color brown blobby parts in the picture. Looks like wiped-off glue squeezeout.

I agree that looks like glue.
If it is a PSL it is likely a non-pressure-treated type; those look greener.
So if you soak it in water and it falls apart then it is likely from a PSL.
Some of the glues used could take a long time to delaminate.

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and the answer from Woodchuck’s Wood is…

BLACK PALM veneer!!!

I’m glad it’s not a composite material so I can laser away. Really beautiful stuff.

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Your guess was right on the mark!

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god i keep seeing PSL and can only think of pumpkin spice lattes, and i don’t even buy them

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Glad to see you got an answer to your question. I received some in my boxes also. Did he happen to say what he uses it for? It’s beautiful but quite fragile feeling. Maybe for inlay or something. I really liked my boxes.

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