Wood Wedges

My rule of thumb for wedges is that one needs to be softer than the other by a fair margin. Or at least more elastic. I've used a hickory wedge but in an ash helve. Normally I use birch wedges in hickory.
Our sugar maple here in Maine is so hard and so inflexible it doesn't make good wedge material in my opinion.
Since trying, and getting amazing results with, yellow birch and paper birch (yellow is my favorite) I just can't see using anything else.
 
Sorry it was getting dark when I was taking those pictures.
Can you identify what kind of wood is that. I gave them stab and twist( pseudo-scientific Janka test). Last two pictures are of a piece I really like (seems harder then the rest) Thanks for any help, guys.

IMG-20200513-194859004.jpg
 
crbnSteeladdict said:
Sorry it was getting dark when I was taking those pictures.
Can you identify what kind of wood is that. I gave them stab and twist( pseudo-scientific Janka test). Last two pictures are of a piece I really like (seems harder then the rest) Thanks for any help, guys.

IMG-20200513-194859004.jpg
Click to expand...
Very hard to identify for me. But in the last three pictures I swear I see medullary rays. Which means oak. Not a species I'm familiar with though. And I'm not at all sure it is oak but that's my best guess!
 
I
crbnSteeladdict said:
Sorry it was getting dark when I was taking those pictures.
Can you identify what kind of wood is that. I gave them stab and twist( pseudo-scientific Janka test). Last two pictures are of a piece I really like (seems harder then the rest) Thanks for any help, guys.

IMG-20200513-194859004.jpg
Click to expand...
I agree the third from bottom looks like white oak. The bottom two look different though almost has a cedar tone. The heartwood in eastern red cedar is very hard but probably not very likely and the red oak we have around my area isn’t as dark as those last two pics.
 
crbnSteeladdict your woods are from down in the tropic zones which you can confirm by noticing at the end grain a very faint distinction between the year rings with no change over from early to late wood sometimes also known as summer and winter wood, a logical consequence since there's no cold and warm periods in those zones only rainy and dry. Nary an oak among the stack, which is not to say there's no oaks in the tropics, one picture showing something looking a lot like Meranti but it is hard to say. You will find it difficult wood to work with hand tool cutting edges, a drawknife particularly ineffective because of the rowed structure which simply means opposing grain directions, leaving you dependent on sawing out your wedges. As wedge material something of a gamble in that these woods react in completely different ways than woods from outside those tropic zones.
 
Ernest DuBois said:
crbnSteeladdict your woods are from down in the tropic zones which you can confirm by noticing at the end grain a very faint distinction between the year rings with no change over from early to late wood sometimes also known as summer and winter wood, a logical consequence since there's no cold and warm periods in those zones only rainy and dry. Nary an oak among the stack, which is not to say there's no oaks in the tropics, one picture showing something looking a lot like Meranti but it is hard to say. You will find it difficult wood to work with hand tool cutting edges, a drawknife particularly ineffective because of the rowed structure which simply means opposing grain directions, leaving you dependent on sawing out your wedges. As wedge material something of a gamble in that these woods react in completely different ways than woods from outside those tropic zones.
Click to expand...
Thank you guys. I am so bad, I need some kind of troubleshooting flowchart to learn how to identify wood species. Tropical tree option has never crossed my mind .
 
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