Navigating the Forest
Choosing the Perfect Wood for Your Woodworking Projects
Let’s dive into the wonderful world of wood species, where each type brings its unique character and charm to our woodworking projects. As a seasoned woodworker, we already appreciate the importance of selecting the right wood for both aesthetics and functionality. So, let’s explore these hardwood varieties together:
Hardwood Varieties Oak
Janka Hardness: 1290–1360
Characteristics: Oak is a classic choice with an appealing open-grain pattern and a light creamy color. It’s durable, hardy, and naturally resistant to rot and insects.
Common Uses: Oak finds its way into flooring, furniture, and cabinetry. Its straight but uneven grain sands to a smooth finish, and it takes stains beautifully.
Mahogany
Janka Hardness: 900
Characteristics: Known as the “Wood of Kings,” mahogany features a rich, pinkish color that deepens to red. Its interlocked grain creates distinctive stripes.
Best Applications: While conservation concerns have made mahogany harder to find, it remains in demand for luxury furniture, cabinets, and cutting boards. If you need alternatives, consider cherry or walnut.
Maple
Janka Hardness: 1450
Characteristics: Maple stands out for its incredible strength, light color, and reddish-brown mineral streaks. The grain is smooth (closed) and takes stains well.
Ideal Uses: Use hard maple (or sugar maple) indoors for high-end furniture, flooring, cabinetry, and kitchen accessories. Although not beginner-friendly for hand carving, it’s exceptionally durable.
Ash
Janka Hardness: 1320
Characteristics: Ash, with its light beige to brown hue and smooth open grain, resembles oak. It stains beautifully without sacrificing grain visibility.
Versatility: Ash serves as a cost-effective alternative to oak and excels in woodturning and lumber. Its shock resistance and historical ties to baseball bats and boat oars make it intriguing.
Walnut
Janka Hardness: 1010
Characteristics: Walnut, the only hardwood with a natural dark color, offers a tough finish. Its dark brown hue and distinctive grain appeal to woodworkers.
Recommended Uses: Walnut shines in upscale cabinets, wood flooring, and fine furniture. Be prepared for its finicky finishing process, and consider it for carving and woodturning.
Other Notable Hardwoods Poplar
Janka Hardness: 540
Characteristics: Poplar, a softer hardwood, boasts a light brown to creamy yellow color and a straight grain. It’s lightweight and holds paint exceptionally well.
Versatility: Poplar is a favorite across various woodworking applications due to its ease of workability. Its soft properties make it ideal for hand carving, which explains its frequent use in millwork, toys, and intricate carvings. In commercial settings, poplar appears in plywood, veneer, pallets, crates, and upholstered furniture frames.
Birch
Janka Hardness: 1260
Appearance: Birch starts as creamy white and darkens to a yellowish-red hue with age. Its straight, closed grain features a fine and even texture, occasionally displaying wavy or curly patterns.
Common Uses: While birch was widely popular in past decades, it now serves utilitarian purposes. You’ll find it in shelving, cabinets, wooden crates, and boxes. Birch also appears in plywood, flooring, and gunstocks. For beginners in woodturning, birch is a good choice, although sharp tools are
Teak
Janka Hardness: 1155
Appearance: Teak, originating from Southeast Asia, boasts a golden brown color and a coarse texture. Its grain is typically straight, but occasional interlocked or wavy patterns add visual interest.
Notable Features:
Rot Resistance: Teak excels in rot resistance due to its natural oils. These oils not only protect the wood but also enhance workability, especially when using mechanical tools.
Versatility: Teak is a favorite in shipbuilding, exterior construction, furniture, and veneer. It also carves and turns beautifully.
Finishing Challenges: However, finishing teak can be tricky. Stains don’t take well, so woodworkers often prefer penetrating oils like tung or teak oil.
Cherry
Janka Hardness: 995
Ornamental Beauty: Cherry, often referred to as “New England Mahogany,” undergoes a delightful color transformation when exposed to sunlight—it darkens to a rich red-brown. Its closed-grain patterns vary from straight to resin-spot grain, sometimes even displaying a ripple effect.
Practical Durability: Despite its ornamental status, cherry is surprisingly durable. It withstands shock and compaction well, making it a luxurious choice for fine furniture, wood paneling, musical instruments, and intricate carvings. Woodworkers often leave cherry unstained to showcase its natural luster.
Softwood Varieties
Now, let’s explore a couple of softwoods—those evergreens recognizable by their needles and cones:
Cedar
Janka Hardness: 900
Weather Resistance: Cedar, a softwood, is a common choice for outdoor woodworking projects. Its strength and natural rot resistance make it ideal for applications like decks, framing, and outdoor furniture.
Carving Considerations: While some cedar varieties are suitable for carving, most lack the hardness needed for intricate details. Cedar also finds its place in cabinetry, flooring, closet linings, and siding.
Pine
Janka Hardness: 380
Commercial Workhorse: Pine, with its creamy yellow to brown appearance, is lightweight and widely available. It’s inexpensive and easy to work with, although it does dent and scratch easily.
Resin Challenges: Pine’s naturally present resin can stick to cutter heads and blades, which can be a minor inconvenience. Common uses include framing, decking, and lightweight covered furniture. While it doesn’t hold stain well, pine takes paint readily.
Spruce
Janka Hardness: 510
Characteristics: Comparable to pine, spruce is lightweight and moderately rot-resistant. It features a fine, even texture with a uniform straight grain. Its rapid growth makes it readily available.
Best Applications: Spruce excels in lightweight structural work, such as framing, boxes, and crates. However, due to its soft properties, it’s not ideal for detailed furniture where finishing can be challenging.
Fir
Janka Hardness: 620
Appearance: Fir ranges from pale to darker reddish-browns. It’s easy to work with both hand and machine tools.
Common Uses: Most often found in construction and lumber, fir serves well in framing and plywood. Some fir varieties are also suitable for outdoor furniture. It takes glue, stain, and paint effectively. In woodturning, sharp tools and proper drying are essential.
Purpleheart
Janka Hardness: 1860
Appearance: Purpleheart ranges in color from a deep rich purple color, to and aged purpleish brown color. Although it is beautiful, one must realize that the color WILL change as it ages. I love the way it ages, but some woodworkers aren’t don’t appreciate it as much as I do.
Common Uses: Purpleheart (Peltogyne purpurea) is like the rockstar of exotic woods. It doesn’t just play a mean guitar; it also boasts incredible strength, durability, and a color that makes other woods green with envy (or should I say purple?).
Here’s the lowdown on its uses:
- Durable Furniture:
Purpleheart is a go-to for crafting sturdy, long-lasting furniture. Imagine a dining table or a sideboard with a deep, regal purple surface. It’s like inviting royalty into your home.
- Paneling and Flooring:
Want to transform a room? Purpleheart paneling adds drama and flair. And if you’re tired of mundane floors, consider purpleheart flooring. It’s like walking on a grape-colored dream.
- Art Pieces and Specialty Items:
Woodworkers and artists adore purpleheart for its unique grain pattern and vibrant color. It’s perfect for creating eye-catching sculptures, intricate inlays, or even custom knife handles.
- Structural Elements:
Purpleheart isn’t just a pretty face; it’s got brawn too. Architects and builders use it for:
- Columns:Imagine majestic purpleheart columns supporting a grand entrance.
- Arches:Because why settle for ordinary when you can have arches that scream “majestic”?
- Industrial Flooring:In factories and warehouses, where toughness matters, purpleheart steps up.
- Boat Building:Yes, you read that right. Purpleheart’s natural oils make it resistant to water, so it’s a hit in boat construction. Sail away on a purpleheart yacht!
- Artistic Woodturning:
Woodturners spin their magic on lathes, and purpleheart responds beautifully. Goblets, bowls, and intricate spindles—each piece a work of art.
Remember, purpleheart isn’t just wood; it’s an experience. It’s the color of passion, the strength of ancient trees, and the promise of something extraordinary. So, whether you’re building a table or turning a bowl, let purpleheart be your muse.
Redwood
Janka Hardness: 450
Appearance: Redwood, a tall-growing conifer found on the U.S. west coast, boasts warm brownish-red tones. Its grain can be either vertical (straight) or flat (wavy) depending on the sawing technique.
Outdoor Durability: Highly rot and insect-resistant, redwood shines in construction framing, outdoor furniture, fences, decks, and even wooden water tanks. Be cautious of splintering during cutting and finishing. It’s a great choice for carving, though beginners should handle it carefully.
Remember, when selecting wood for your projects, consider factors like hardness, grain, and texture. Each wood type has its own story to tell, waiting to be transformed into something beautiful by your skilled hands!
Grain and Texture: Grain affects both appearance and tactile feel. Oak, with its visible grain, appeals to those seeking texture. For a smooth finish, consider maple or cedar.
Notable Others
While the forest of wood species is vast—more than I could possibly list—the previous are the workhorses of my craft. However, there are other species I occasionally incorporate, albeit sparingly. Some, unfortunately, fall into the ‘cost-prohibitive’ category. Here’s a glimpse of those woods I tend to avoid, and why.
Holly
A timeless classic with a rich ivory tone that contrasts beautifully with darker woods, however a 1.5” x 1.5”x 18” long piece is currently priced at $46.99 at a local hardwood dealer.
Ebony
A dark rich brown-black color, ebony is known for its strength and versatility; but that same local hardwood dealer currently has a piece that is ¾” x 3” x 24” on clearance for $60.99. Need I say more?
Zebrawood
Easily identifiable by its incredible stripes, zebrawood is a gorgeous wood, that also tends to be cost prohibitive for most projects. A ¾” x 4” x 36” currently is selling for $56.99.
Padouk
Padouk—a wood that wears its heart on its sleeve, or rather, its bright orange/red hue. It’s the kind of timber that can turn heads and create jaw-dropping pieces—like my ‘Big Tim’s Tensegrity Table.’ But here’s the catch: Padouk doesn’t play by the rules.
You see, I’ve got this professional dust collection system in my shop—a high-tech guardian against the fine particles that threaten to settle like mischievous pixie dust. Yet, Padouk laughs in the face of my well-engineered defenses. It’s like the rebel artist who splatters paint everywhere, heedless of the canvas boundaries.
Last time I dared to dance with Padouk, my shop transformed. Dust motes pirouetted through the air, and my pristine workshop took on a rosy glow—a dark pink, to be precise. It was as if Cupid himself had a woodworking phase and decided to shoot love arrows made of Padouk dust.
Cleaning up? Oh, that was an epic saga. A week-long battle against the pink tide. I swept, vacuumed, and wiped down surfaces until my fingers felt like sandpaper. But Padouk had left its mark—a stubborn reminder that beauty sometimes comes with a price.
So, while I admire Padouk from afar, I’ve learned my lesson. It’s the enigmatic guest at my woodworking party—a dazzling troublemaker who leaves behind a trail of blush-colored mischief. But hey, every shop needs a little drama, right?
And if you ever need more tales from the woodshop or advice on taming unruly timbers, I’m here—dusty apron and all!
Finishability: The Final Flourish
When it comes to finishing your woodworking projects, keep these considerations in mind:
Treatment Needs:
- Natural Beauty:If you want to let the wood’s natural beauty shine through without any treatment, opt for rot and insect-resistant varieties. Teak, cedar, and redwood are excellent choices for this purpose.
- Staining:If staining is part of your vision, choose wood that accepts it well. Some species, like maple and cherry, take stains beautifully, enhancing their color and character.
- Painting:For painted finishes, consider saving high-end hardwoods (such as cherry or mahogany) for other projects. Poplar is perfect for painted projects, but softwoods like pine and spruce readily accept paint.
No One-Size-Fits-All:
Remember, there’s no universal wood that suits every situation. Each species brings its unique character to what we create. Whether you’re wanting a rustic farmhouse table or an elegant jewelry box, choose wisely and allow me to let the wood’s story unfold.
