Help identifying Indonesian wood from 1950?

[aCircle]

Hey FOG -- hoping you all can help me with a spot of wood identification.

My grandparents were in the Foreign Service and had some furniture made when they were posted in Indonesia in the early 1950s. That furniture has since taken a beating (grandfather was hard on his things, then in my parent's basement for ~20 years) and I now find myself with this lumber of unknown species.

I've got a few clues:

// It's heavy. Like, really, really heavy. I can't remember ever personally handling lumber this dense.
// There doesn't appear to be any sort of finish, so this color and mottling seems to be natural.
// It's quite brittle. Trying to plane down a tiny bit got me a whole bunch of tear-out, so I stopped.
// My dad seems to remember it being some sort of old-growth hardwood. If that's the case then it's probably illegal to cut whatever it is now.

I'm wondering what you all think this might be. If we figure out what it is, I'd love some advice on how to work with it! Most of my experience to date has been with domestic hardwoods so exotics is a new one for me.

 

[woodbutcherbower]

If the timber used was locally sourced in the 1950's it's very likely to be either Meranti, Ulin, Ebony, Trembesi, or Sonokeling. Your photos only reveal so much, so use Google images to see what species you think is the closest match compared to your real article. Nowadays, Meranti is the only Indonesian hardwood still commercially available - everything else is on the CITES banned list.

Kevin

 

[Michael Kellough]

Ebony is the only name on Woodbutcher’s list that I recognize and simply because of that I suspect it is ebony. If someone offered to make furniture for me and said I could choose the wood from that list I’d say ebony just due to simple kneejerkism. But it does look rather like ebony with a lot of sapwood.

 

[aCircle]

Thanks both!

[member=75780]woodbutcherbower[/member] that list got me started with a bit more experimentation and I'm inclined to believe it's Ulin given a quick test of some of the plugs show that they sink!

Does that confirm it for you as well?

Incidentally, while they were in the water I noticed that they came out smelling like manure... which wiped off. That made me wonder if the adhesive was an organic and sure enough, it looks like water and a bit of scrubbing removes it as shown in the photo where I've taken off a strip. Any suggestions for the best way to do this at scale? Just water and elbow grease?

 

[aCircle]

Doing a bit more digging. Also looks like maybe Macassar Ebony, which also sinks.

 

[peter halle]

That adhesive, based on the smell might be fish glue which was used in the Far East.  It will resoften with water.  Didn't remember much about it but just learned some more:

Stew-Mac Fish Glue

Peter

 

[James Carriere]

It very much looks like Macassar Ebony to me.

 

[luvmytoolz]

It very much looks like Macassar Ebony to me.

+1 from me!

 

[aCircle]

Fascinating that the fish glue is called Luthier’s glue. I got the idea to try softening with water because of the hide glue reference in this article on a Luthier, John Becker.

Any tips on cleaning up the old glue? Is there any reason to use any sort of additional solvent besides water?

 

[Mini Me]

Thomas Johnson does a lot of work with old glues
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=johnson+furniture+restoration