What Does Hickory Wood Look Like

In fact the seventh president of the United States Andrew Jackson was nicknamed Old Hickory because he was said to be as tough as hickory.

What does hickory wood look like. The two wood samples were stained with a diluted Dark Golden Oak water-soluble aniline dye but first the red oak was sealed with thinned shellac so it wouldn t darken too much. These ridges may be shallow or deep far apart or close together but always vertical. The pignut hickory Carya glabra is a dark-gray tree that extends to 5060 feet in height with a spread of 2535 feet.

Test split a piece of wood. Hickory floor planks can range in color from light vanilla to dark chocolate sometimes in a single board. Hickory trees have bark that forms ridges in a vertical pattern.

This naked appearance is most prominent at the end of branches and at the top of the tree. The sapwood is nearly white. Softwoods like pine and cedar may split too easily.

Look at the bark. If it looks like the same pattern repeats itself on all sides of the board then youre not looking at solid wood. Hickory sapwood or the outer rim of wood directly behind the bark is white to cream-colored while the heartwood or wood in the center of the trunk is tan or reddish brown.

You can do this by looking at the edges of a piece and seeing if the end grain matches up with the direction of the grain along the face of the wood. Hickory is a very hard dense wood making it difficult to cut and split. When you look at a piece of Sycamore the bark almost makes the wood look naked.

It may be easier to tell fine grains from end cuts. Nowadays hickory wood is also used to smoke cure and barbeque meats giving them that distinct hickory flavor. Oak walnut and similar hardwoods split easily.