Help needed to ID some wood...

[Christophe]

Hi everyone,

Could anyone tell me what this wood might be?
I thought it might be Sambucus but it is around 20cm/8'' diameter which is rather big for being sambucus...
Thanks.

[Robin Fawcett]

Willow or Poplar.

[woodchubber]

Yes, I reckon it's Willow too
jm

[Christophe]

Thanks Robin and JM...
Once again, I probably looked for an answer too complicated...the color of the wood (maybe not showing too well on the picture) lead me think of something less common...
Anyway good enough for practising

[SeanHellman]

More than good enough for practising, an easy wood to carve and I have some lovely willow spoons.

[ToneWood]

Bit late but willow would be my guess too. The light colored wood and the bark color and texture is similar (but not identical) to some of the crack willow I have been carving & burning recently. I haven't worked with poplar though. Willow, at least crack willow, is not the best wood for carving but I managed to carve a couple of bowls and a froe mallet from willow (the mallet was great but not long lasting, it split after a few months).

The bowls are willow, the edge guards are beech & ash.

BTW I thought Sambucus was one of those European aniseed liqueurs but I see that it is another name for elder, which I always think of as a poor quality wood (light, weak, brittle, big soft pith hollow that can harbour bugs, not much heating value and considered unlucky to burn* - although I burn it) but perhaps that is just my ignorance.

*"Make a fire of Elder tree,
Death within your house will be;"

[Christophe]

Tonewood,

I did find your post about crack willow, but after asking the question.....
About sambucus, I also thought it was just used for wind instrument like Slovakian flutes, but the reason I thought it could be it is because the person who gave it too me is surrounding by it, apparently they can grow quite large after some years and the colour of the pit was so reddish that I thought about some kind of fruit tree.....
But willow will do
BTW, nice link to the firewood poem...hopefully when you burned your sambucus, death was not around the house!!!

[anobium]

Sambucus nigra AKA elder has, according to H Edlin ( Woodland Crafts in Britain) many uses varying from pea shooters to a substitute for boxwood as old wood is very hard. It can apparently be used as a substitute for ivory or dyed black it serves as ebony. Its uses in making wine and supposed medical benefits are well known.

[ToneWood]

...BTW, nice link to the firewood poem...hopefully when you burned your sambucus, death was not around the house!!!

Fortunately no correlation. In fact, if anything, an inverse correlation - perhaps I should burn more of it. Burnt some last night, so should be ok for a while.

Sambucus nigra AKA elder has, according to H Edlin ( Woodland Crafts in Britain) many uses varying from pea shooters to a substitute for boxwood as old wood is very hard. It can apparently be used as a substitute for ivory or dyed black it serves as ebony. Its uses in making wine and supposed medical benefits are well known.

That is interesting and surprising. I will look at elder differently in future. Thanks for sharing that anobium

[Christophe]

Merci Anobium, I knew that holly was used as a substitute of ivory but sambucus nigra...really nice piece of information, I'll have to find some old one to try.

[Donald Todd]

The great feature of Elder is that it has a very pronounced pith, so small diameter wood can be used to make peashooters or whistles. Wild Rose also has a large pith, but seldom grows straight like Elder that has been cut back and regenerated.