What wood is this?

[JimC]

Can anyone hazard a guess as to what this beam is made of? Its very likely to have been NZ sourced.
These are large images I'm afraid, about 2MB each, which is why I've just given links. The top one may well be the best picture. On my monitor it seems to have come out a little more pink/red than real life, but of course your kit will be different!

http://www.devboats.co.uk/qsjb/resource ... /wood4.jpg

http://www.devboats.co.uk/qsjb/resource ... /wood1.jpg
http://www.devboats.co.uk/qsjb/resource ... /wood2.jpg
http://www.devboats.co.uk/qsjb/resource ... /wood3.jpg
http://www.devboats.co.uk/qsjb/resource ... /wood5.jpg
http://www.devboats.co.uk/qsjb/resource ... /wood6.jpg

[Ancient Geek]

From the look of it a fast growing soft wood they have lots of Sitka and other home grown from Nothern Seeds woods like that the pinkish tinge on my screen suggests maybe a cedar of sorts.

[Ed]

Lots of weird woods down there that we don't know naught about....

but....it certainly looks like Western Red Cedar to me.

What kind of weight is it?

Is there any smell from it?

cheers

eib

[JimC]

but....it certainly looks like Western Red Cedar to me.

Its pretty light (predictably bearing in mind the boat it was on!), but hasn't got that Cedar smell and doesn't seem to be pink enough in real life - the camera/flash/indoor lighting combination does seem to have put a slight pinkish cast. It does have a moderate smell, especially when freshly planed but I couldn't describe it. Now, a couple of days after I planed the surface, it smells very little and I don't know that I could distinguish the small from ordinary building pine. Fresh it was slightly more exotic somehow, but then I don't often go round sniffing freshly planed timber to be sure. I guess I ought to be able to calculate an approximate density if I put my mind to it.

[chris]

It is surely a conifer of some kind and if it does have a smell it probably is a cedar rather than fir or a pine. It doesn't look like Cedar of Lebanon which has a lovely scent and keeps the moths away. Juniperus Virginiana (Eastern red Cedar) was used for pencils and will smell like the old 'real' pencils' and Western red smells like - western red cedar. Cedars are light and have good durabilty in wet conditions - mush better than Sitka for instance. But I don't know what is grown down under.

[Obscured by clouds]

Douglas fir?

[jonathan]

Paran Pine? Straight grained stuff used for furniture framing and stair cases in buildings. Should have a nice pine smell when freshly worked. Cuts well and takes screws and glues(!) Wow - such activity in the workshop - I should be so lucky.
Frankly, it could be any softwood that was lying arond the boatshed at the time, especially if it was out of sight and out of mind.

[chris]

I don't think it looks like either Douglas fir or parana pine. As you say Jonathan, just any old bit of softwood that came to hand probably. Sitka spruce has the best weight/strength ratio but is not as durable outdoors as cedar and doesn't have much of a smell so I don't think is is that. It could be just about any of the conifers really, what about larch which is a good boat building timber? Larch is very light.

[Ancient Geek]

Pirana Pine is quite dense though and Larch is very white in colour and because its slow growing the medulury rays are close together, that sample was fast growing. If you can handle it cedar tends to feel "brittle" it isn't but thats the only way I can describe it. It takes and edge as well.