red elm

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NOTE: there is rarely any "standard" or "typical" look for a wood so take what's in this table with a grain of salt
the REST of the pictures on this page will give you a better overall feel for this wood

red elm / Ulmus spp.
6" x 6" flat cut, 4" x 4" quartersawn, 1" wide end grain, and a 1/4" x 1/4" end grain closeup.

Generally Ulmus rubra (syn Ulmus fulva) of the family Ulmaceae but may include other species. Ulmus rubra is also widely known as slippery elm.

See "elm, misc" for more discussion of the elm species and names (which are a mess) AND to see a sample of the "feathering" that makes elm relatively easy to identify.

Obvious ring porous growth rings with a few (generally 2 to 4) rows of large to smaller earlywood pores in a continuous row, giving way to large then smaller ulmiform pore groupings. Earlywood pores have vasicentric parenchyma and the ulmiform pore bands have confluent parenchyma. Thin rays are present and ray flakes on quartersawn surfaces will be multitudinous and thin/small. "Feathering" due to the ulmiform pores is generally obvious on flat cut surfaces and cathedral grain is common.

A NOTE ABOUT ELMS IN THE USA

my samples:
NOTE: these pics were all taken in very bright incandescent lighting ("soft white" at 2700K)
colors will vary under other lighting conditions

two faces of a small plank of red elm, the first being a quartersawn face and the second a flat cut face --- as you can see from the end grain shot below, the face that is almost perfectly quartersawn has very nice ray flakes

end grain, end grain closeupof the piece directly above

END GRAIN UPDATE from directly above

red elm planks and closeup

END GRAIN UPDATE from a sample cut from one of the planks directly above and done to get another sample for the anatomy pages.

sample plank and end grain sold to me as red elm / slippery elm / Ulmus rubra

end grain closeup of the piece directly above

END GRAIN UPDATE from directly above

both sides of a sample plank of slippery elm / Ulmus rubra

end grain and end grain closeup of the piece directly above

END GRAIN UPDATE from directly above

both sides of a sample plank of slippery elm / Ulmus rubra --- HUGE enlargements are present. This sample was loaned to me by David Clark whom I thank for this and other contributions to the site.

end grain and end grain closeup of the piece directly above

END GRAIN UPDATE and side grain closeup from directly above. As you can see in the 2nd enlargement of the end grain update, there are very thin rays and in the quartersawn grain shot you can see, even though it is not well cleaned up at all, the accompanying tiny flakes.

both sides of a sample plank of red elm / slippery elm / Ulmus rubra --- HUGE enlargements are present. This sample was loaned to me by David Clark whom I thank for this and other contributions to the site.

end grain and end grain closeup of the piece directly above

both sides of a sample plank of slippery elm / Ulmus rubra --- HUGE enlargements are present. This sample was loaned to me by David Clark whom I thank for this and other contributions to the site. I note that the vendor of this piece has labeled it as "quartersawn". That is a bit of an exaggeration; it's really rift cut.

end grain and end grain closeup of the piece directly above

both sides of a sample plank of slippery elm / Ulmus rubra --- HUGE enlargements are present. This sample was loaned to me by David Clark whom I thank for this and other contributions to the site. Note that this sample was sold as "quartersawn" but really is quarterCUT, not quartersawn. See the sample directly below this one for one that actually is quartersawn.

end grain and end grain closeup of the piece directly above

END GRAIN UPDATE from directly above

both sides of a sample plank of quartersawn red elm / slippery elm / Ulmus rubra --- HUGE enlargements are present. This sample was loaned to me by David Clark whom I thank for this and other contributions to the site. This piece actually IS quartersawn and shows the kind of small, moderately short, ray flakes that are typical for this species, especially on the unlabeled side.

end grain and end grain closeup of the piece directly above

the second pic is the end grain of the first piece so you can clearly see that this is flat cut. Contrast this raw, rough end grain with what it looks like after sanding (but no finishing agent) in the bowl at the bottom of this page. The bowl pieces are from the same plank as this sample.

a little stick that I had laying around when I had some room left in a batch of end grain processing, so I put it in. As you can see, one of the faces is perfectly quartersawn so I took a pic of the ray flakes

end grain and END GRAIN UPDATE of the piece directly above

these samples are from a couple of sections of a different plank. It is rift sawn and is considerably darker and duller than the first plank and has a much more uniform grain pattern. The samples below are from a different lot and show a much more lively elm, not just because they are flat cut rather than quartersawn but also because the wood is more colorful than this plank.

closeup and end grain of the 2nd piece directly above

cut from the same long plank as the one directly above, this one is shown dry and then moistened with water

small piece and end grain

end grain closeup of the piece directly above

two sides of a piece cut from a nicely figured red elm plank --- the color is exact

the first pic is the same as the one directly above it except that the wood has been sprayed with water just to show how nice the grain pattern is with a finishing agent. The second pic is to show the end and side grain of the same piece.

end grain closeup of the piece directly above

END GRAIN UPDATE from directly above

both sides of a sample plank of quartersawn spalted slippery red elm / Ulmus rubra --- HUGE enlargements are present. This sample was loaned to me by David Clark whom I thank for this and other contributions to the site. The ray flakes are particularly clear on the upper part of the labeled side. Note that is is white rot spalting.

end grain and end grain closeup of the piece directly above

END GRAIN UPDATE from directly above

both sides of a sample plank of spalted slippery red elm / Ulmus rubra --- HUGE enlargements are present. This sample was loaned to me by David Clark whom I thank for this and other contributions to the site. Note that is is white rot spalting.

end grain and end grain closeup of the piece directly above

END GRAIN UPDATE from directly above and also a closeup of the edge that is very close to being quartersawn and show very clear ray flakes

a set of thins cut from a plank from the same lot as the one that yielded those samples directly above --- the color has been over-corrected and shows too much red; these pieces should have the exact same color as the previous samples

a couple of flat cut red elm veneer sheets (first pic) and some closeups from them

This flat cut red elm veneer sheet was loaned to me by John Koehn whom I thank for this and other contributions to the site.

quartersawn red elm veneer

quartersawn red elm veneer with small ray flakes that didn't show up well in the direct shot so I've added an angled shot that shows them somewhat better

quartersawn red elm veneer with ray flakes, and a closeup --- the color is too light; should be the darker brown of the piece directly above.

The Wood Book pics

flat cut, quartersawn, end grain
slippery elm (Ulmus fulva, also listed as red elm and moose elm)

elm pics from The Wood Book --- both levels of enlargement are available for each of the 3 views of each species

web pics:

red elm flat cut, quartersawn and end grain

red elm log ends --- I'm not sure these can both be red elm, considering the vast difference in the width of the sapwood. My friend Mark Peet does say that they could both be elm, but while the first one looks like Siberian elm (aka red elm), the second one looks more like American elm, not red elm.

red elm planks and turning stock

plank listed as red elm / Ulmus rubra, probably moistened for the pic, since the color is WAY too rich for raw wood

red elm planks and a closeup

red elm flat cut and quartersawn planks; the grain shows better in the enlargements

red elm plank with wet and dry sections

plank listed as red elm heartwood

rustic red elm planks

plank listed as slippery elm

turning stock listed as slippery elm

bowl blank and turning stock listed as red elm --- note that the turning stock is identical to one listed by the same vendor as "American elm" which makes me dubious about this vendor's care in naming woods

veneer listed as red elm

veneer listed as American red elm

flat cut and quartersawn veneer, both listed as American red elm / ulmus rubra veneer

red elm veneer --- I believe this piece must have been watered or oiled

listed as quartersawn red elm veneer although the 2nd pic is clearly NOT quartesawn, but rift cut --- vendors tend to not use the term rift cut, perhaps believing that it is not widely understood, so on something like this that is rift cut but for the most part appears very close to quartersawn, they just list it as quartersawn.

spalted red elm

three views of a spalted red elm plank

slippery elm hat by Dennis Ford. I don't normally solicit pics for this site but I found Dennis's work to be so striking that I asked, and he generously contributed this and several other pics of his hats, using various American domestic woods including Siberian elm, American elm, sweet gum, ash, and pecan. The finish on this one is Minwax wipe on poly. My thanks to Dennis for the pics.