Detail of head.

Steven wrote on Oct 31^st, 2011 at 12:15pm:

Thank you.  If I was a smartass, I'd say the density was similar to ironwood, but I'll try to describe it.  It's like someone made some wood out of plastic -- the grain is almost not there, and it's the opposite of porous.  This particular wood is very light, most ironwoods are heavy.  Any wood called "ironwood" can be used as a substitute for metal in clockwork, or as a mortar and pestle.  

Police batons are usually ironwood, the cops in my area all have light batons because they make them out of this gray birch.  If you live in the Maritimes or New England, ironwood has "leaves like birch and bark like maple".  There are different ironwoods in different places, in England it's solenum vitae.  Check wikipedia for "ironwood" to find the tree in your woods. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ironwood

It's the hardness, not the weight.  Most ironwoods are heavy, but the test is whether you can substitute it for metal in certain functions -- it doesn't wear easy, hence mortar and pestle, etc.  It's a pain in the neck to saw through once it's dry too.  It's not dense like in physics, but the fibres are densely packed.  I like the lightness, though -- it's lighter than maple and therefore quicker, but it'll break a maple cane in half.  I believe it's by far the lightest ironwood.  What I have here is either http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostrya_virginiana or some wood that's only called ironwood in my part of the world and isn't famous.  It's not really a birch, it just looks like one.

Good thread. I always wanted to get my hands on some ironwood and make nunchaku.