# Pallet wood, is it Ash?



## webweever (May 9, 2008)

Anyone have an idea what this is? Harder than pine, not as brittle as poplar and relatively heavy.


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## mako1 (Jan 25, 2014)

Looks like pine to me.Could be harder because there are many varieties of pine.you may not be familiar with.Could be heavier because pallet wood is not dried as much as construction lumber .


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## Steve Neul (Sep 2, 2011)

It's in the pine grade of wood. My guess it is hemlock.


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## epicfail48 (Mar 27, 2014)

That looks like pine. Pine can get pretty hard, and the growth rings on that seem pretty tight to me.

I'm pretty positive that's not ash though. Grain looks way too different


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## webweever (May 9, 2008)

Other than plain old experience how do you identify wood?


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## mengtian (Nov 8, 2012)

Pine, probaly from NW. New England pine is relativley soft


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## epicfail48 (Mar 27, 2014)

webweever said:


> Other than plain old experience how do you identify wood?


Do an image search for wood and pick out the one that looks closest to what you have. Or, alternatively, do what i do and make something up thats so ridiculous it sounds true enough for people not to question it


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## ETWW (Mar 27, 2011)

It's Pine. As for hardness, I have seen and used SYP from an old home so hard that a pilot hole had to be drilled in order to drive a nail into it.


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## Steve Neul (Sep 2, 2011)

webweever said:


> Other than plain old experience how do you identify wood?


If you were really serious about it you could get a wood identifying kit. Still there are a few common woods that some of it is difficult to tell the difference. Maple and Birch, Pecan and Hickory,Red Oak and White Oak.


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## webweever (May 9, 2008)

Thanks all for the advise


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## Ghidrah (Mar 2, 2010)

Fir can be heavy and hard, the example has the color and ring pattern but I never saw it used for pallets. The Lumb yds in my area use rough sawn white pine for throwaways and scrap white oak for pallets and they don't let the oak ones go.


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