What to Make with this 200 Year Old Wood

[nickao]

I love collecting wood and have over 2300 samples now. I can identify at least 600 different woods myself pretty easily with the end grain, a loupe and some end grain identification close ups(about 2000)  I have. It is a great hobby.

This is a pretty great site and if you look up the woods discussed you will see what he has sure does look like the black olive(Bucida buceras not regular olive-Olea europaea) and nothing like Bulletwood at all:

http://www.hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/indextotal.htm

This is what Bulletwood looks like:

 

[RONWEN]

And if you want some inspiration here's a great place to look

http://www.pritameames.com/archives.html

Enjoy

Jay

Delightful!

 

[jvsteenb]

Here are some other names people call Bulletwood, you can see where the confusion comes in:
.
.
.

Beefwood
.
Bolletrie
.
Macaranduba
.
Massarandu
.
.
.

Yes, that's actually very beautiful wood, and the pieces displayed David sure aren't the same species.

I'll add two more denominators to your list:  "Massaranduba" and "Paardevleeshout".
The main source of this species ( besides Guyana ) was Surinam, a former colony of the Netherlands. "Paardevleeshout" actually means "horsemeat wood" and it got that name for the distinct dark red colour of the freshly cut wood, resembling smoked horse beef. Hence the name  "Beefwood".
Very difficult to dry, due to the "balata" sap ( a hard, non-elastric natural rubber ), "watering" would hardly leach that out. As it tends to warp and distort heavily during the ( slow!! ) drying process, a slab of this size would be an unbelievable achievement.

Let me point out that I have no intention to rain on anyone's parade - this is a beautiful piece of wood, regardless of the name on the sticker. It would be nice to know the actual species though.

Regards,

Job

 

[DavidCBaker]

Job, I just had time to call Rich back at GreenerLumber.com and I misheard him the first time. It's not bullet wood but bullet tree, otherwise known as black olive wood. In the US it grows in shrubs, but it's allowed to grow into huge trees in Central America. This log was under water AT LEAST by 1910, and probably before that. And the tree was likely 100+ years old before it was felled. I believe the Latin name is bucida buceras.

Does that sound more like it, or do I need to keep searching? I can get you better pictures of the slab. BTW, it has very little crowning--maybe 1/32" across the entire width. Apparently it's very difficult to dry because of the capillary structure.

 

[nickao]

Yes that sounds better. Black Olive is what I came up with.

No one can tell what a wood is definitively by a picture, the end grain needs to be examined under a min of 10 X magnification for a positive id.

 

[DavidCBaker]

I keep learning things around here--that's good!  ;D