# Wood species



## USMCGRUNT (Jun 18, 2015)

Hello, a friend of mine was doing some demo on an older home from mid to late 1800's in Philadelphia. He pulled out these studs, but I have no clue what it is. I was thinking it was just a regular pine, but again I am not certain. It feels fairly light compared to pieces of reclaimed Chestnut that I have lifted before. 

Any help would be great. Thanks!











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## Catpower (Jan 11, 2016)

Looks like some kind of pine

I used to live in NW Iowa, that is where I started my career in HVAC/R. I used to up date the houses with central heat and air, a lot of them were built with gravity furnaces.

The first could I just guessed on the labor, then got the bid because I was way too low, and I found out why, a lot of the oldest houses were built out of oak or some other hard wood and they had hand forged nails, talk about hard to cut in perimeter vents, it was before bi metal sawsall blades, and I went through them buy the dozen


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## epicfail48 (Mar 27, 2014)

That does look a bit chestnut-y. Kinda hard to tell without looking at some smooth face grain though


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## Catpower (Jan 11, 2016)

epicfail48 said:


> That does look a bit chestnut-y. Kinda hard to tell without looking at some smooth face grain though



I have never worked with chestnut before, is it pretty hard? The reason I was asking it it looks like they used forged nails in a couple pictures but the ones on the ends where it looks like they toe nailed it in are wire nails, they would almost have had to drill pilot holes if the wood is hard

The old oak houses I ran into were all forged nails because I think you can drive them in hardwood but I have been wrong before


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## USMCGRUNT (Jun 18, 2015)

Catpower said:


> I have never worked with chestnut before, is it pretty hard? The reason I was asking it it looks like they used forged nails in a couple pictures but the ones on the ends where it looks like they toe nailed it in are wire nails, they would almost have had to drill pilot holes if the wood is hard
> 
> The old oak houses I ran into were all forged nails because I think you can drive them in hardwood but I have been wrong before




I am a very amateur woodworker. Only have a few years in my two garage shop. I can say for me personally, it was not the easiest species to work with. But saying that, I have not worked with a ton of different species. 

I made a table/benches (pic attached) from an old Amish barn. I was told that wood was very very old. My biggest problem with it was working around the "shake/flake" (Not even sure if they are correct terms) in the wood. At one point, I cut an entire plank out after glue up and replaced it. The face grain just kept lifting on me and I wanted a certain thickness. However, this may be because it was so old. 

In the long run, I love the table, but I had to put some work in. 



















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## Catpower (Jan 11, 2016)

Very nice


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