My correspondence with Eric Meier continues…
Eric: At this point I’m stumped. It’s still pretty hard to make out the finer details of the endgrain — not sure what grit you sanded that to, but I’ve found that using an electric sander instead of hand sanding for the final grits makes a big difference in clarity. It almost looks like a Pterocarpus species (i.e., padauk, narra, muniga, etc.) from that view, but that’s a very preliminary guess.
Where’d you get the block of wood from? And idea of how the weight compares to other known woods?
Michael: Sanded the block at 1200 grit the wood came from a friend – I’ve had it 15 years and I bet they had it 20+ the piece is 4 x 2 x 24 and is slightly heavier than a similar size piece of Red Oak. Hope that helps?!
Eric: My initial guess would be some sort of Swartzia species, such as Wamara or Katalox. If you really want to be sure though, I’d send a small sample to the USDA for them to test. It’s a free service for all US citizens. I believe I can info on how to contact them on my “contact” page online. See previous correspondence
THis is the wood that Eric believes my sample is: