superspeedo wrote: how to tell the Difference between spruce and pine timber
I assume we're talking timber from North America. Get out your hand lens, make a very clean cut on the end grain and follow along ...
"hard" pines (lodgepole, red, jack, ponderosa, etc.): longitudinal resin canals numerous, quite evenly distributed in the outer portion of every growth ring, generally visible to naked eye as dark-or light-coloured dots or as small openings, relatively conspicuous with a hand lens; transition from earlywood to latewood more or less abrupt
"soft" pines (sugar, eastern white, western white): longitudinal resin canals numerous, quite evenly distributed in the outer portion of every growth ring, generally visible to naked eye as dark-or light-coloured dots or as small openings, relatively conspicuous with a hand lens; transition from earlywood to latewood gradual
eastern spruces (Englemann, white, red, black): longitudinal resin canals generally sparse, unevenly distributed, sometimes absent, invisible or barely visible and not conspicuous with hand lens; latewood not pronounced, transition early to latewood gradual
Sitka spruce is the tough one, as it sometimes has more numerous resin canals than found in other spruces, and so can be confused for a soft pine. Compared to the distinctive strong resinous odour of the pines, Sitka has a much more subtle fragrance.
Source: Panshin, A.J. and de Zeeuw, C. 1970. Textbook of wood technology. 3rd Edition. McGraw-Hill.
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