Woods that you love and hate

[mrcharly]

Which wood do you love and hate?
For me, it has to be yew.

Such beautiful grain, takes a lovely polish. Contrast between heartwood and sapwood is great.
So hard to work, definitely generates blisters. Sapwood splits so easily. Full of little knots that are hard to work but add to the attractive grain texture.

 

[Toddy]

Holly….beautiful light coloured wood, and it splits

M

 

[HillBill]

Yew for me. Love the wood, but the dust gives me headache... even with a mask on.

Also walnut..... again lovely wood, but hard on the sanding belts.

 

[bobnewboy]

Ipe - kills tools and edges, apparenty due to a very high silicate content, but makes great bows and is quite pretty in a chocolate brown way.
Purpleheart, as for Ipe, but more colourful, and fades from bright purple when exposed to sunlight.
Osage - hard and colourful. Fades/changes colour over time and has great chatoyance in soome pieces. Makes great bows (can you see a theme here...). Might be the origin of the lyrics "Bring me my bow of burning gold".. bright yellow when cut, then fades through golden to deep brown or even purplish in some cases.
Hickory - not pretty as such, but tough as all heck
Yew - very pretty and lovely to work with - a nice crisp feel under an edged tool, but a bit soft for some applications
Amboina - hard and very very pretty - especially so with burl. Smells like black pepper when worked.
Maple - quilted and birdseye - beautiful but can be tricky to work, likes an abrading tool rather than edged I find.
Bamboo - not technically a wood, but SO versatile.
Eastern Red Cedar - not actually a cedar but a juniper - wonderful smell that lasts and beautiful rosy-pink coloured heartwood. Makes good bow bellies but too soft for handles etc
Padauk, cocobolo etc - all hard and pretty, but I only use them for accents and protective pieces.

 

[forrestdweller]

stringbark (= eucalyptus species) my faithful companion of over nine years travelling is made from this timber
mulga (OZtralian desert hardwood)
black walnut- good for furniture and i like it for spoons, too

 

[Fraxinus]

With bobnewboy on Purpleheart love to use it but hate that sunlight dumbs down the colour.
Brazilian Cedar, Cedrela fissilis, great to work with except that the smallest amount of dust makes everything you eat taste like dirty nappies (not a true Cedar either)
American Black Walnut, works great but causes rhinitis and nosebleeds for me...
Olivewood is great to work but is only suitable for small projects or projects with many smaller parts. Glueing needs care.
Oak, Ash and Beech all seem to behave well and somewhat predictable in use which is why they are in my fav's list.

Rob.

 

[Harvestman]

I love the smell of cedarwood and it takes a lovely finish, but that big open grain is useless for delicate work.

 

[mountainm]

Cocobolo

Looks great, takes a great polish, smells good - but the dust is awful.

 

[petrochemicals]

at the risk of stereotype, oak nice and hard nice grain.

but oak, sometimes brittle not straight most of the time and twisted, and difficult to work with.

if mdf is allowed, the most stable wood (ish), but I still hate it. dust fragility to water temdancy to turn to dust.

 

[bernie66]

Poplar. I am lucky to have a number of unworked seasoned planks. They are easy to work and the "green" tinge that runs through them makes for very interesting pieces. Still can't find a use for the amount I have though.

 

[Trencakey]

Ash,love to fit canoes out in it,hate sanding it.Sore throat and burning nostrils if I forget the mask (which more often than not I do)

 

[Macaroon]

Have to agree with Toddy; Holly is a pain to get in large section, doesn't take a stain well, can be hard on hands and tools, but boy oh boy, when you get it right and it doesn't check and shake it's the most beautiful and subtle wood both in looks and in feel; I have Holly topped sticks which have been used for over forty years and they've been polished to very like Ivory by the caress of the hand........and very strong and resilient, too

 

[crosslandkelly]

I could cut and work pine all day long, just for the smell. Pain in the bottom knots though. MDF!!!! the work of the Devil.

 

[Quixoticgeek]

Holly….beautiful light coloured wood, and it splits

M

Agreed. The way it splits is a right sod

Oh, and MDF is a product of the devil, horrible stuff...

J

 

[Tiley]

Box (Buxus sempervirens) - a beautiful wood with amazing patterning in it that hardly needs any oil treatment BUT it is a complete pig to carve. Dave Budd described it painfully accurately when he said it was like trying to carve fossilized butter...

 

[Baelfore]

Another fan of oak here,

But I must admit brambley apple wood is probably my all time favourite, the different shades of brown that show up in a nice peice are just irresistable!

Ste

 

[nic a char]

ALDER = "SCOTTISH MAHOGANY"
"As befits a tree which grows primarily in swampy areas or by riversides, the alder's wood does not rot in wet conditions and indeed becomes as hard as stone when left immersed in water. Crannogs (wooden strongholds on Scottish lochs) were built on rafts or piles of alder trunks. Such uses continued into the time of the Industrial Revolution when alder wood was favoured for the making of lock gates and other canal paraphernalia. Most of Venice is built on piles made of alder trunks.
Out of water and out of doors, however, the timber rots easily, and so it proved less suitable for building or fencing. It was similarly less than ideal as a fuel for heating, but it does make excellent charcoal. This burns with an intense heat and was used by the Celts, for example, to forge their best weapons. Later the charcoal was used in the manufacture of gunpowder, and because alder coppices easily, small plantations of the tree were often established next to such factories.
In England alder was the preferred wood for clog making, possibly because it is a poor conductor of heat."

 

[Wayne]

Blackthorn. Lovely hard wood for walking sticks and bows. Never get a long straight piece. Always get stabbed when harvesting.

 

[Squidders]

Marine Ply - It's just brilliant and comes in super-convenient sheets...

... I'll get my coat.

 

[nic a char]

nice1 squidders!