New member intro & wood ID / Ideas

Hi everyone & a Happy New Year to you all.

This is my first post on this forum so please be gentle with me.

Firstly a little bit about me. I am John a retired joiner living in the shadow of the Malvern Hills and now keep myself out of mischief woodturning as well as restoring classic motorbikes & cars (especially Landover’s), all as hobbies. I am fortunate to live in a rural location so find some lovely pieces of timber to play with lying around in the fields & hedgerows. This is really what led me to post this. About 5 years ago I picked up the pieces pictured below from a local meadow, I think they may be old roots ? Does anyone have any ideas and also the actual wood ? I have been thinking about what to do with it so as an experiment I cut a piece off and just turned the ends and made this small vase, I left the side as is & then oiled it. You can see in one of the photos the cut end from the main piece. The rule is 12inch.

So- questions - is it root? what wood is it? (It is quite hard), any suggestions as to what to do with it?

Many thanks & apologies for rabbiting on a bi,t I am sure there will be more posts to come. Cheers.

(apparently I can only put one image on as a new member)

I dont think it is very simple to identify a wood from its roots visually, since roots don’t show the grain or colour that is attributed to wood from the trunk. Your best bet maybe to look at the types of tree growing around the location where you found them, if you haven’t already? But I am no expert sorry :slight_smile:

Believe it or not, freshly machined wood can have a very identifiable scent. When your eyes and hands can’t quite get a definitive answer, sometimes your nose…