Question About Beechwood And Longbranch

[rgg_7]

The stock pictured is definitely "Birch". LB used walnut, yellow birch (with and without dye) and maple. I've never seen LB produced "beech" however lots of Brit "Beech" on FTR LB's. Ron (Canada)

[Peter Laidler]

Glad you said that too RGG. I've seen a lot of the light woods on the No5's, 4's and L1A1's etc etc and while I'm no expert by any stretch of the imagination, that photo just looked like birch to me, albeit a little yellow - which I puit down to age and treatment. I wish I could find the words that our woodworking instructors (Mr Duffield and Reilly) usaed to use to illustrate each.......

[SpikeDD]

Thank you all for your input. I was skeptical enough so, I asked. Beautiful wood for sure, Perhaps CODFan would like to sell me his butt?? ;-)

[Seaspriter]

Perhaps a few visual pictures from the Woodworkers Association might help unscramble the wood identification conundrums:

Walnut: http://www.woodworking.org/WC/Woods/161.html
Birch: http://www.woodworking.org/WC/Woods/030.html
Beech: http://www.woodworking.org/WC/Woods/020.html
Maple: http://www.woodworking.org/WC/Woods/125.html

Remember, what the wood looks like in real life depends very much on how it's cut relative to the grain, and how it's been stained.

Hope this helps.

[Peter Laidler]

You're right of course SS. I was thinking of a reply but your last sentence really does sum it up. A GOOD example of this was a friend wanted to replace some oak flooring. Took some large sections to the carpenters shop nearby to have it cut into planks and then into the flooring sections. When it came back it didn't even remotely match what he'd laid earlier. Because they'd sawn and planed the wood from the same original trunk section but using a different 'cut'.......

[Seaspriter]

You're right of course SS. I was thinking of a reply but your last sentence really does sum it up. A GOOD example of this was a friend wanted to replace some oak flooring. Took some large sections to the carpenters shop nearby to have it cut into planks and then into the flooring sections. When it came back it didn't even remotely match what he'd laid earlier. Because they'd sawn and planed the wood from the same original trunk section but using a different 'cut'.......

And multiply that consternation with the different types of woods within a species -- white or red birch? white or red oak or English brown oak? or African or Honduran Mahogany (Philippine mahogany is not a real mahogany), etc. -- and then the woodworker will typically quarter-saw a plank leaving a tight grain while the carpenter will live-saw a plank getting the widest board possible, with two totally different appearances. No wonder the amateur woodworker can get confused.

[breakeyp]

I always get it wrong in identifying wood until I bought a book called, "What Wood is it." It has actual samples of the wood bound in the book.

[Surpmil]

What kind of wood is this?

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How heavy is it? Canadian Rock Maple has a very definite weight that soldiers of the time did not enthuse over. It was also rather hard to work and there is a retired Canadian armourer hopefully still with us who told me how the W.O. in charge of one depot he worked in wrote off all the maple and had it burned as he disliked it so much! Several truck loads was the amount as I recall.

The edges are always crisper on the maple, unless it's been sanded down and you can just feel the density of the wood holding it in your hand.

I would guess maple for that butt, but the colour is a bit more like birch than the maple, which tended to be lighter than that IMO.

Maple was found to be the most suitable wood for stocking after walnut BTW.

[SpikeDD]

When CODfan posted a pic of his buttstock, I saw it was a perfect match for the forestock and handguards I had. I private messaged him and he agreed to sell the buttstock to me. Thank you CODfan, I am extremely happy with the complete set of LB marked wood now. I don't have anything to put in it but who knows what the future holds.

The complete stock and shots of the wood that confused my amateur wood eyes. A nicely done patch as well, that I'm sure Peter will approve of.

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[CODFan]

Nice match.

Looks good!