Using pine and oak for a stick?

[rayray]

I have a old stick i found after a tornado and there is no bark on it and we believe its either oak or pine maybe maple and i was wondering if i could use it, i am planning on cleaning it using a bleach water solution. Does any body know? :cheers:

 

[JBLAZE725]

I believe i read somewhere that pine was toxic so you might not wanna use that. There are some other threads on this topic also so you may want to search around you might get your answer quicker that way.

 

[Willow771]

Heres how to tell.....

Pine is soft, you should be able to sink your nail in
Oak is very pale and often compared in pattern to a beach. it has short fragmented lines.
If the other two dont fit its maple...or its something else...to be honest all three woods are so diffrent that if you think it could be any of those three it really could be anything.

Also bleaching a stick would be bad because it would absorb in the wood. bake it and even if it is pine...it IS a stick and not wood chips so most of the bad surface oils would be baked away, not much would come to the surface again, it is dead so it will not give off much more oil or resin

 

[rayray]

o ok, well it is really pale and does have lil lines on it.

 

[Willow771]

Well if its hard enough that you have issues sinking a nail in, its not pine or cedar (they are both really soft). so go ahead and bake it in the oven.