of note, I learned something in a discussion with a friend today ... I commented to him that I thought I'd discovered the wood species (from here) and mentioned it to him. I also commented to him that when I pulled the front sling ring off to apply the linseed oil under it, that the wood was clearly pithy and soft. It was also quite light (in Australia we have Eucalypts which really are hard and heavy). He said that "hardwood" as a classification came from aspects unrelated to it hardness. Sure enough it is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardwood
Hardwood is wood from dicot angiosperm trees. The term may also be used for the trees from which the wood is derived; these are usually broad-leaved. In temperate and boreal latitudes they are mostly deciduous, but in tropics and subtropics mostly evergreen.
...
As the name suggests, the wood from these trees is generally harder than that of softwoods, but there are significant exceptions. In both groups there is an enormous variation in actual wood hardness, with the range in density in hardwoods completely including that of softwoods;
some hardwoods (e.g., balsa) are softer than most softwoods, while yew is an example of a hard softwood.
On the topic of rubberwood I found this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubberwood
Chemical treatment[edit]
Rubberwood is susceptible to fungal and insect attack that limited its use in the past. However in the 1980s, the development of chemical treatment processes allowed the wood to be more widely used for furniture making and frames. Today, rubberwood is generally treated soon after sawing by pressurized immersion in boron preservatives, followed by kiln-drying to diffuse the chemicals and to control moisture content.
which explains to some extent why the wood looked 'treated' but wasn't polished.
I suspect (haven't tried cutting it) that its actually a softer wood (certainly softer than what I'm used to calling hardwood) and may explain the cracking in the CircuitJudge.
Anyway ... perhaps that's of some interest.
