What Type of Wood Is This?

[ChetlovesMer]

22 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

I think this is the case. The previous owner did mention that cabinets were Amish-made. I checked a few drawers and such, and there isn't any markings on them. The drawers are mostly high end plywood. The face of the cabinets look to be hardwood of some kind. There is some areas were the finish has rubbed off and you can see the grain underneath.

If you get a chance open a drawer and take a picture of the area where the drawer box meets the drawer front. You can learn a lot about a cabinet from looking at that area. 
Also, do you know what year they were installed?

[Bonvivant]

Definitely not persimmon

[saevel25]

5 minutes ago, ChetlovesMer said:

Also, do you know what year they were installed?

No clue. Here is some images of the drawers.

 

[boogielicious]

Are they heavy or lighter cabinet doors? Pecan is pretty heavy. Due to the stain they chose, I’m thinking not cherry but maybe walnut or pecan. Maple tends to yellow and would be more golden with that color stain applied I would think.

[ChetlovesMer]

5 hours ago, boogielicious said:

Are they heavy or lighter cabinet doors? Pecan is pretty heavy. Due to the stain they chose, I’m thinking not cherry but maybe walnut or pecan. Maple tends to yellow and would be more golden with that color stain applied I would think.

Most woodworkers will dye maple not stain it. Maple has notoriously tight pores. Stain tends to just sit on top of it, rather than soak in. Factory made maple doors are commonly sprayed with stain. A lot of times you can then scrap stain off maple, even with your thumbnail. 

 

14 hours ago, saevel25 said:

No clue. Here is some images of the drawers.

 

Okay, so those drawers are 9 layer plywood drawer boxes. Which probably means not Amish. In my experience the Amish like solid wood drawer boxes. Secondly their is no joinery on the corners of the drawer boxes. The Amish would most like use a box joint or dovetail joint (Not dovetails, but a dovetail joint. Dovetails would only be appropriate with hardwood boxes) with plywood drawer boxes I would have definitely done a drawer joint. I believe the Amish would have also. It's quick and it would last forever. I don't see any metal fasteners holding the drawer boxes together. I don't see any pegs. I don't see any the hint of spline. So, my guess is probably biscuit jointed. (Again, biscuit joinery is almost never used by the Amish) 

It is possible that there just isn't any joinery. It could be simply glued. But I think that's unlikely. 9 layer plywood is very high quality and would be used because it's extremely stable. (Read that as it doesn't move when the weather changes. Expanding and contracting wood is why sometimes drawers or doors stick in the summer, but not the winter.) A cabinet shop using that type of wood for a drawer box would be doing so because they want the drawer to outlast you and me. I would think they would have done some form of joinery otherwise one day the drawer front will literally be pulled off. With joinery it will last forever. That's another reason I'm guessing biscuit joints. 

Anyway, the good news is that a lot of really high quality custom guys do use plywood drawer boxes. (For the reasons mentioned above.) I've used it a ton for anything you want to be very functional. But with no visible joinery I gotta believe it's biscuit jointed. Otherwise there must be some fasteners I just can't see. BTW - Biscuit joinery was really common in the 80's and 90's. It's still used heavily today, but only for custom guys building on site. It's far too easy to set up a joinery station in a cabinet shop and make drawers that way. Is there a chance these cabinets were done in the 80's-90's? 

Can you also share a picture of the face frame between the hinge side of two cabinet doors? 

[boogielicious]

1 minute ago, ChetlovesMer said:

Most woodworkers will dye maple not stain it. Maple has notoriously tight pores. Stain tends to just sit on top of it, rather than soak in. Factory made maple doors are commonly sprayed with stain. A lot of times you can then scrap stain off maple, even with your thumbnail. 

 

Okay, so those drawers are 9 layer plywood drawer boxes. Which probably means not Amish. In my experience the Amish like solid wood drawer boxes. Secondly their is no joinery on the corners of the drawer boxes. The Amish would most like use a box joint or dovetail joint (Not dovetails, but a dovetail joint. Dovetails would only be appropriate with hardwood boxes) with plywood drawer boxes I would have definitely done a drawer joint. I believe the Amish would have also. It's quick and it would last forever. I don't see any metal fasteners holding the drawer boxes together. I don't see any pegs. I don't see any the hint of spline. So, my guess is probably biscuit jointed. (Again, biscuit joinery is almost never used by the Amish) 

It is possible that there just isn't any joinery. It could be simply glued. But I think that's unlikely. 9 layer plywood is very high quality and would be used because it's extremely stable. (Read that as it doesn't move when the weather changes. Expanding and contracting wood is why sometimes drawers or doors stick in the summer, but not the winter.) A cabinet shop using that type of wood for a drawer box would be doing so because they want the drawer to outlast you and me. I would think they would have done some form of joinery otherwise one day the drawer front will literally be pulled off. With joinery it will last forever. That's another reason I'm guessing biscuit joints. 

Anyway, the good news is that a lot of really high quality custom guys do use plywood drawer boxes. (For the reasons mentioned above.) I've used it a ton for anything you want to be very functional. But with no visible joinery I gotta believe it's biscuit jointed. Otherwise there must be some fasteners I just can't see. BTW - Biscuit joinery was really common in the 80's and 90's. It's still used heavily today, but only for custom guys building on site. It's far too easy to set up a joinery station in a cabinet shop and make drawers that way. Is there a chance these cabinets were done in the 80's-90's? 

Can you also share a picture of the face frame between the hinge side of two cabinet doors? 

You know a lot about wood. So answer this question, “What kind of wood doesn’t float?”

[ChetlovesMer]

1 minute ago, boogielicious said:

You know a lot about wood. So answer this question, “What kind of wood doesn’t float?”

Natalie Wood?

[boogielicious]

1 minute ago, ChetlovesMer said:

Natalie Wood?

BINGO! We have a winner!

[ChetlovesMer]

1 minute ago, boogielicious said:

BINGO! We have a winner!

Even blind squirrels....

[billchao]

37 minutes ago, ChetlovesMer said:

Most woodworkers will dye maple not stain it. Maple has notoriously tight pores. Stain tends to just sit on top of it, rather than soak in. Factory made maple doors are commonly sprayed with stain. A lot of times you can then scrap stain off maple, even with your thumbnail. 

That’s why I thought it was maple. The grain pattern looks about right and the stain is blotchy in spots.

[Carl3]

@ChetlovesMer based on my brief interaction with you this summer I guessed you for a retired CIA spook or DEA agent, not a cabinet maker. Maybe that is your cover? I appreciate your expert knowledge of wood and cabinetry.

[ChetlovesMer]

1 hour ago, billchao said:

That’s why I thought it was maple. The grain pattern looks about right and the stain is blotchy in spots.

Yeah, I can see that. And you very well may be right. That's why this can be a difficult thing to do, especially with photos over the web. To my eye I thought I saw some almost greenish tint buried under that stain. That is very much a characteristic of birch. Birch is often used to imitate a lot of other woods. It's pours are almost as tight as maple, its patterns can be as pronounced as mahogany. It can do a good job blending in a lot of places for a ton less money.

The one thing it can not do is imitate the hardness of maple or mahogany. @saevel25 could conceivably do a hardness test on it. Basically a ball bearing is pressed into the wood at a certain pressure and then based on the depth it sinks you'd look that up on a Janka scale. Hard Maple is about 1 and 1/2 times harder than birch. Mahogany is about 2 -1/2 times harder. 

The other thing about birch is as the stain starts to wear often the green tint that is so often running though the wood will start to show. It won't be consistent many strands will have more green than others. This can be reduced or eliminated with dye before staining. A lot of folks won't go that extra mile. Having said that, I really think we are looking a pretty custom job here. These do not look like any factory built drawers I've ever seen. So, in reality its very hard to say what the craftsman did here. 

So again, if you held a gun to my head I'd guess birch. But if you told me it turned out to be maple (especially soft maple, aka fast growing maple), mahogany, or possibly even a nut tree like pecan, I'd have to believe it. 

1 hour ago, Carl3 said:

@ChetlovesMer based on my brief interaction with you this summer I guessed you for a retired CIA spook or DEA agent, not a cabinet maker. Maybe that is your cover? I appreciate your expert knowledge of wood and cabinetry.

I had to study a lot of cabinetry to make my cover story believable. 

[Missouri Swede]

Faldo would probably refuse to call it a wood and refer to it as a “lofted metal.”

[flopster]

It looks like maple.