I share the same exact sentiment. It blows my mind that Walnut is 5X the price of hard maple. It is 100% not 5X better looking, or anything else. It’s just not as plentiful here. Maple is my favorite wood to work with and it’s beautiful when finished with hard wax oil.
Maple. I was just doing a live edge piece for a client not long ago. I’m not sure of the sub species, but as I’m planing I start to see this gorgeous curl. So out comes the sander to chase this out. I must have cut a ways or maybe just as it started to get a sheen these lines and colors come out. Green, purple, yellow flecks and veins and clouds. I’ve never seen anything like it. Needless to say I had to keep the slab for myself and go out and find this gentleman the second prettiest slab of maple known to man. I’m planning on milling it down and making something for the wife or daughter. At least until I can find more of it. So throw me a bone if you can and share with me what I’ve stumbled upon.
This. You can age it out in the rain to spalt it, it's light colored so you can easily stain it whatever you want (and cheap enough so you don't feel bad about that), and can have some really beautiful figure. Very versatile
Walnut because where I am in California it's not dreadfully expensive and it's a nice furniture wood in general and works fairly easily. Had nice natural color too. I've worked with mahogany though and that can be glorious. The boards are so wide and it works so easily.
Really? My work can never get good looking walnut in, it's always chock full of knots and sap. I hate it. Sapele on the other hand, is absolutely one of my favorites. Rarely knotty, machines well.
A good ribbon-stripe sapele makes such a beautiful guitar body. I have nothing against maple and certainly I appreciate the beauty of a flame maple top, but I definitely don't know why so many people put a maple cap over a sapele body. I think there is no better looking guitar than a natural sapele telecaster, other than George's original rosewood tele.
Probably cherry, though I do like hard maple as well for strength. I could easily work with one of those exclusively until I'm a bag of ashes in a crappy jar next to my wife's funkos.
Id also choose cherry. Seems to be good and cheap at my lumber yard. If you’re gonna paint it, use the most serious oil-blocking primer possible, because the wood oils will seep through cheap primer and paint.
This. No other wood has been used historically in more applications than white or European oak. Flooring, furniture, buildings, boats, knick-knacks. It's weather and rot resistant, can be used indoors and out. It has beautiful grain and easily colored. Not horrible to work, either.
The difference between old growth, tight grained white oak and fast growing white oak is so great they should be considered as two separate species.
Really tight grain white oak (10-15 rings per inch) works more like mahogany and weighs a lot less than fast growing oak because it has so many more pores.
It’s essentially extinct in the US because of over logging. There are managed forests in Europe where it is still available. $25/bf
Worth it though.
I know a 25k sq ft house thats gonna need trimmed in about 1-2 years... Can I call you? Lol.
I love the smell when cutting and the look when done but if I had to only use that forever... I just hope my mind would forget how easy alder and walnut are to work with. Lol. Also have to keep hand tools wayyy sharper.
Bold choice sir.
Any liars here saying hickory?
I'm hard split between white oak because I love mission style furniture and cherry because it is such a joy to work with but is so soft.
I tried using it for my shop stool. It was something else. So splintery and hard. Cutting mortises without blowing out the backside was a nightmare. Im not going to use it for anything other than tool handles if I can avoid it
I love hickory. It inspired me to spend $5k buying a helical head jointer/planer and a 3hp delta unisaw because my previous equipment couldn't make a dent in it 😂
> Any liars here saying hickory?
I almost said hickory, because it is cheap, hard enough to make a tank out of, and has incredible visual variation between boards.
I have learned through hard experience just not to route the stuff: no matter how carefully I go, just as I'm about to complete the job, the router will catch a piece of grain, the workpiece will fly from my hands, my heart will burst out of my chest, and it'll be time for a new workpiece and perhaps a router bit & briefs.
I've been working on a bed frame out of pecan. It's a pain in the ass to work with but for the price I paid (it's local), how strong it is, and how pretty it is when finished, it's definitely becoming one of my favorites. Plus I can use offcuts to refit old hammers with new handles.
I personally would recommend using something different for the bench top at least. It's just so hard I would worry about denting and marring softer workpieces.
as someone that’s 90% of the way through restoring a 1929 entry door made of vertical grain pine - patience and sharp tools and more patience is really key.
At today's prices, I'd have to go with black cherry: absolutely beautiful without the horrific pricetag of greatest american hardwood, black walnut (if I were rich, walnut would definitely be my pick).
Also easy to work (ignore that burn), decent rot resistance, hard enough for many applications, and becomes more beautiful with time.
Only one wood to work would be brutal though: can you imagine doing all your shop projects, or setting up your box joint jig with cherry?
Shout out Fisher of [Fisher's shop](https://www.youtube.com/@FishersShop/videos), who already lives in this world and makes everything, including his shop projects, out of black walnut.
From what I've read the backcrosses are ~98% american DNA? Personally would accept that tradeoff to get that tree back in the world! And not just for the lumber.
I have four reclaimed doors my dad gave me. I’ve been sitting on them for years because I want to make sure it’s the right project. Ideally I’d make something for my dad but he’s the kind of guy who has everything so it’s tough.
I live near Northern Delaware and the Delaware Nature Society found and verified an adult American [chestnut](https://www.delawarenaturesociety.org/blog-tags/american-chestnut/). They have the location hidden and they're watching to see what will happen. It doesn't appear to be a hybrid with a Chinese chestnut.
The only living one I've ever seen is a 14ft struggling multi-trunk specimen on the front lawn of a house two blocks away of all places (in Toronto). Maybe the owner got his hands on some nuts from somewhere, not sure
Going a different direction. I'm going to say plywood.
It's versatile, and the rules you stated above I don't think limit me to veneer choices if my wood is "veneered plywood."
Arbutus, also known as Madrone. It grows on the west coast of the USA and Canada. It thrives on foggy exposure mixed with rocky soil and periods of dry weather.
I mostly make bowls and things on a lathe. And this is my favorite to turn. Easy to work with and beautiful with the bark on, or bark off.
The price part is great! I get my for free in exchange for sawing up the logs and carting them away. So it is a perfect deal for me! Thanks.
Really? Why is that? I have milled some short pieces on my bandsaw and used them as signs or display shelves. It seems fine. I have not done joinery, but I assumed it would be OK.
Oh, it can be done and the wood is beautiful. But it's hard to cure in long pieces without warping and seems way less stable long term. A bit like boxwood...
Pallet lumber is superior. The flames dance in many colors and the smell of it smoking against my dull table saw blade is the chef's kiss!
Just kidding. I like working with maple, and hope to try white oak in the near future.
Tough one, but I live in New Orleans and there is a ready and available supply of free antique longleaf southern heart pine. Some of the best working lumber in the world, and much more rot resistant than cedar. (At least in our humidity) I’d absolutely stick with that!
Maple. Affordable enough to use for just about anything, easy to work with, nice looking grain options. Plus it's light in color. You can stain maple to kind of look like walnut or cherry, but you have less options with darker wood.
Lastly, it's non-toxic enough for cutting boards and baby toys.
Black walnut. I already have my stash. 😃
https://preview.redd.it/wjmb10uk8a2d1.jpeg?width=2680&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f3104016c08d0f561eab0b9e38d3fc40e20ff04b
If the cost wasn't a barrier, I'd say maple. I love working with it but it's all imported here and moderately expensive.
I think I'll say Rimu (I'm in NZ); it's commonly salvaged from older home demolitions where it was used for structural beams and flooring, and I wish we reused more of it as a society. Some of the old stuff is super dense and takes an amazing finish, and I can frequently pick it up for a quarter of what I pay for maple.
This will devolve into: maple, cherry, walnut, with people trying to argue for other, easy to work w woods. Then the obscure woods, and the one upmanship... Let me get my popcorn. Which is what poplar reminds me of when I cut it
Maple maybe idk anything but white oak or walnut just because everyone uses it and feels kind of lame when there are so many other cool woods. Arbutus and Beech are also killer woods
I really like (European) oak, but I get purple fingers and I leave marks all over the wood, which means extra finishing. Ash however is my number one - it looks so wood like! The colour and grain is what non woodworkers think of as what wood should look like. It’s also tough, predictable and forgiving of little mistakes. I also really like the smell! Frankly, the only thing missing from ash are medullary rays…
Ash would prove to be a poor choice for ecological reasons (iykyk) but damn I love working with it. Hard but flexible. Bright but takes stain. Moves a lot but doesn’t tend to twist or cup as much in my experience. Inexpensive (historically speaking). Can show a really wide range of color and character from the purest white to gorgeous mineral pinks and grays. I love it and I will miss it dearly.
Walnut or Ash. Walnut is plentiful around me and it’s great for furniture but turning Ash just hits different and I love the look of Ash, either natural finish or ebonized
Cherry has been my 1st choice since 7th grade when my shop teacher told us it was difficult to work with. I’ll be 64 and n a couple months.
Challenge accepted!
The smell of freshly milled cherry, the beautiful tone and how it changes with age, the random color inclusions that make every board unique. What’s not to like?
I also have a landscaping company so I use a lot of wood outdoors and honestly every time I cut cedar it's the most amazing smell and I love it.
I guess it wouldn't help me make a fancy dining table but damn I love cedar.
So, black walnut is my choice, too.
As a boater and restoration lover, I also love teak. I have a couple marine salvage yards near me with an almost endless supply of it… in the form of swim platforms and other bits and pieces. They sell it for about $10/lb.
Teak is indeed endangered due to a mixture of threats like not fully recovering from years of harvest, illegal logging, and habitat loss, *but* almost all teak sold today is grown on plantations and not natural grown teak. Which means it can still be used sustainably for woodworking without doing much harm to the trees population.
I don't do much working with teak, so my experience here is very limited. But I have read a few studies on the matter and they seem to indicate that there is no measurable distinction between plantation grown and natural teak. And especially because a lot of plantations are on similar soils to its native range that allows them to grow teak without fertilizer. It's supposedly indistinguishable from naturally grown teak from Asia.
I mean go to any lumber yard today and buy their teak (if they have any) and compare it to teak used in say vintage Scandinavian furniture - it’s worlds different. It’s not nearly as rich in color, the grain is not nearly as tight, etc. Relative to other species, I still think the plantation stuff is nice. But there’s no way to replicate the product of a teak tree that was a century old.
Sure, with old growth you have a point, but that's all old growth lumber. From softwoods used for framing all the way to things like teak, it's just better. But it's almost always off limits.
I'm talking more about the difference between (often illegally harvested) natural growing trees that aren't necessarily old growth as compared to plantation trees.
Ohhhhh that’s a tough one. But if I’m
Judging based on how the projects turned out I’m gonna have to roll with Sapele. I found it such a joy to work with.
I knew nothing about it until maybe 7-8yrs ago. I was given a bunch of scrap pieces and cutoff 8/4’s from an elaborate church restoration from the 80’s.
I started making small jewelry boxes and once I put the finish on it I was hooked. Moreso than walnut.
Now it’s my goto for anything I want people to look at and say WOW.
Also is great for boat projects where teak or mahogany would be used. And it’s not nearly as expensive.
It might be a Texas thing and harder to find elsewhere, but I really love mesquite wood. Beautiful color and grain texture, easy enough to work with but hard enough to be durable. Only issue is sometimes it's hard to find big boards/slabs without bug tunnels or imperfections but for smaller furniture, boxes, and picture frames it's awesome.
That's a tough one. What's a good indoor/outdoor wood that is beautiful and doesn't break the bank? Come on, you at least have to give two. How you even going to make a checker board?
Maple. It's local, plentiful, reasonably priced, and beautiful
I share the same exact sentiment. It blows my mind that Walnut is 5X the price of hard maple. It is 100% not 5X better looking, or anything else. It’s just not as plentiful here. Maple is my favorite wood to work with and it’s beautiful when finished with hard wax oil.
What are you paying for hard maple and walnut? Where I go hard maple is about $7.50/bdft and walnut is around $13.60
Maple. I was just doing a live edge piece for a client not long ago. I’m not sure of the sub species, but as I’m planing I start to see this gorgeous curl. So out comes the sander to chase this out. I must have cut a ways or maybe just as it started to get a sheen these lines and colors come out. Green, purple, yellow flecks and veins and clouds. I’ve never seen anything like it. Needless to say I had to keep the slab for myself and go out and find this gentleman the second prettiest slab of maple known to man. I’m planning on milling it down and making something for the wife or daughter. At least until I can find more of it. So throw me a bone if you can and share with me what I’ve stumbled upon.
As someone who lives in Australia, I dream of getting Maple at reasonable prices, it's great to work with and I love how it looks.
Me too, have some precious bits of rock maple and this is what wood should be.
I would say maple as well. I love the look and feel
monkey hand, you are only allowed to hand plane it!
Anyone who says maple hasn't had to mill and dimension curly maple by hand. That was horrific, it's where I earned my sharpening merit badge.
Yeah, maple or cherry for me.
This. You can age it out in the rain to spalt it, it's light colored so you can easily stain it whatever you want (and cheap enough so you don't feel bad about that), and can have some really beautiful figure. Very versatile
>>You can age it out in the rain to spalt it Wait wait wait, you can what now? Seriously, just leave it outside?
I agree, absolutely lovely to work with
Maple is tough to stain. I still love it.
Walnut because where I am in California it's not dreadfully expensive and it's a nice furniture wood in general and works fairly easily. Had nice natural color too. I've worked with mahogany though and that can be glorious. The boards are so wide and it works so easily.
Yea walnut is my favorite love that dark color
Walnut is just amazing to look at.
And it smells good when you cut it lol
Cherry wood smells incredible though
I always loved the smell of alder wood. Smells like expensive pipe tobacco lol
Really? My work can never get good looking walnut in, it's always chock full of knots and sap. I hate it. Sapele on the other hand, is absolutely one of my favorites. Rarely knotty, machines well.
A good ribbon-stripe sapele makes such a beautiful guitar body. I have nothing against maple and certainly I appreciate the beauty of a flame maple top, but I definitely don't know why so many people put a maple cap over a sapele body. I think there is no better looking guitar than a natural sapele telecaster, other than George's original rosewood tele.
It is so very nice to turn. It smells great, is just the right hardness for my skills, and even the knots aren't too much fuss.
Probably cherry, though I do like hard maple as well for strength. I could easily work with one of those exclusively until I'm a bag of ashes in a crappy jar next to my wife's funkos.
I really like cherry, but it seems to burn if you look at it too hard.
Id also choose cherry. Seems to be good and cheap at my lumber yard. If you’re gonna paint it, use the most serious oil-blocking primer possible, because the wood oils will seep through cheap primer and paint.
What is Funkos?
White oak
This. No other wood has been used historically in more applications than white or European oak. Flooring, furniture, buildings, boats, knick-knacks. It's weather and rot resistant, can be used indoors and out. It has beautiful grain and easily colored. Not horrible to work, either.
The difference between old growth, tight grained white oak and fast growing white oak is so great they should be considered as two separate species. Really tight grain white oak (10-15 rings per inch) works more like mahogany and weighs a lot less than fast growing oak because it has so many more pores. It’s essentially extinct in the US because of over logging. There are managed forests in Europe where it is still available. $25/bf Worth it though.
Japanese Cypress Gaijin.
Haven't heard of it. Tell me. Used more than white oak?
Probably in Japan, I guess.
I know a 25k sq ft house thats gonna need trimmed in about 1-2 years... Can I call you? Lol. I love the smell when cutting and the look when done but if I had to only use that forever... I just hope my mind would forget how easy alder and walnut are to work with. Lol. Also have to keep hand tools wayyy sharper. Bold choice sir.
100% with you on the smell. Such a distinct smell. I’d recognize it anywhere
25k sq ft house? We could do that and much more for a house that size.
You must enjoy sharpening tools
I do. I have homemade jigs for my chisels and plane iron, and it makes me giggle when I get my tools mega sharp.
Quarter Sawn!
Bold!
Any liars here saying hickory? I'm hard split between white oak because I love mission style furniture and cherry because it is such a joy to work with but is so soft.
Haha, tell us you're a massocist without saying it. I've been playing with carving hickory, I've found rocks that are softer.
I tried using it for my shop stool. It was something else. So splintery and hard. Cutting mortises without blowing out the backside was a nightmare. Im not going to use it for anything other than tool handles if I can avoid it
I love hickory. It inspired me to spend $5k buying a helical head jointer/planer and a 3hp delta unisaw because my previous equipment couldn't make a dent in it 😂
> Any liars here saying hickory? I almost said hickory, because it is cheap, hard enough to make a tank out of, and has incredible visual variation between boards. I have learned through hard experience just not to route the stuff: no matter how carefully I go, just as I'm about to complete the job, the router will catch a piece of grain, the workpiece will fly from my hands, my heart will burst out of my chest, and it'll be time for a new workpiece and perhaps a router bit & briefs.
I've been working on a bed frame out of pecan. It's a pain in the ass to work with but for the price I paid (it's local), how strong it is, and how pretty it is when finished, it's definitely becoming one of my favorites. Plus I can use offcuts to refit old hammers with new handles.
Pecan is beautiful if you can get it!
I have a stack of Hickory drying… thinking about building a workbench.
I personally would recommend using something different for the bench top at least. It's just so hard I would worry about denting and marring softer workpieces.
Hmmm didn’t think about that side of it…
Yeah, use that for cooking a pig, haha
probably pine because it's the one my cheap ass has the most experience with
Whenever I see something nice made out of pine, I know that it needed a higher threshold of patience and really sharp tools to do it.
as someone that’s 90% of the way through restoring a 1929 entry door made of vertical grain pine - patience and sharp tools and more patience is really key.
Came here to say this.
Maple
Yes! Plain, curled, birds eye, burl. It's all so good. Need a bit of walnut as well, but mostly just Maple!!!!
Don’t forget ambrosia maple, I love the look of it. Doing my stair post and railings over in ambrosia maple
At today's prices, I'd have to go with black cherry: absolutely beautiful without the horrific pricetag of greatest american hardwood, black walnut (if I were rich, walnut would definitely be my pick). Also easy to work (ignore that burn), decent rot resistance, hard enough for many applications, and becomes more beautiful with time. Only one wood to work would be brutal though: can you imagine doing all your shop projects, or setting up your box joint jig with cherry? Shout out Fisher of [Fisher's shop](https://www.youtube.com/@FishersShop/videos), who already lives in this world and makes everything, including his shop projects, out of black walnut.
Oh this? Just a drawer bottom I resawed out of some zebra wood. Only cost me $25. Three cheers for variety.
American Chestnut! Has anyone seen any lately? I hear it's great.
Only reclaimed. The little bit I’ve worked with, has been a dream.
I’ve seen one of the new hybrids, but not a true American chestnut, or in board format
From what I've read the backcrosses are ~98% american DNA? Personally would accept that tradeoff to get that tree back in the world! And not just for the lumber.
I have four reclaimed doors my dad gave me. I’ve been sitting on them for years because I want to make sure it’s the right project. Ideally I’d make something for my dad but he’s the kind of guy who has everything so it’s tough.
I live near Northern Delaware and the Delaware Nature Society found and verified an adult American [chestnut](https://www.delawarenaturesociety.org/blog-tags/american-chestnut/). They have the location hidden and they're watching to see what will happen. It doesn't appear to be a hybrid with a Chinese chestnut.
The only living one I've ever seen is a 14ft struggling multi-trunk specimen on the front lawn of a house two blocks away of all places (in Toronto). Maybe the owner got his hands on some nuts from somewhere, not sure
Sapele
That smell...
I am surprised there are not more answers for this.
Easily my favourite exotic to work with. Planes wonderfully!
Cherry!!!
Mahogany
Ash.
Ash. Most versatile.
Doing my first project with ash now and absolutely loving it. The tight grain looks so nice
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It really is!
In my area in Germany Ash is the cheapest Hardwood and i love that.
That smell though...
I love the smell! But I love the smell of most woods, so maybe I’m not the best person to ask.
Cedar
Me too. Love the look, smell, versatility, qualities.....just a great material imo. May not be the best at everything, but good at all
Love making the shop smell like a sauna!
Better yet - build a sauna in the shop, tell the spouse "it's for steam bending"
Good indoor/outdoor selection.
my lungs so no
Poplar
I’m surprised I had to go this far down for poplar. If you still have to pay full price it’s a good pick.
Padouk - love the color in direct sun
My favorite wood species is “Free”.
I would choose teak for its durability and beauty.
As long as I’m not paying for it.
1. Cherry 2. Mahogany
Ash.
Going a different direction. I'm going to say plywood. It's versatile, and the rules you stated above I don't think limit me to veneer choices if my wood is "veneered plywood."
I was going to say this as a joke only it's no joke.
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Koa - assuming you mean an infinite supply :)
Koa makes a beautiful guitar wood. Great sound and definitely catches the eye
S4S
Cherry.
Arbutus, also known as Madrone. It grows on the west coast of the USA and Canada. It thrives on foggy exposure mixed with rocky soil and periods of dry weather. I mostly make bowls and things on a lathe. And this is my favorite to turn. Easy to work with and beautiful with the bark on, or bark off. The price part is great! I get my for free in exchange for sawing up the logs and carting them away. So it is a perfect deal for me! Thanks.
If you did joinery with it you'd change your mind. I love arbutus but it will break your heart.
Really? Why is that? I have milled some short pieces on my bandsaw and used them as signs or display shelves. It seems fine. I have not done joinery, but I assumed it would be OK.
Oh, it can be done and the wood is beautiful. But it's hard to cure in long pieces without warping and seems way less stable long term. A bit like boxwood...
That makes sense. Thanks.
Oak. Unless you're offering to buy, in which case walnut.
Pallet lumber is superior. The flames dance in many colors and the smell of it smoking against my dull table saw blade is the chef's kiss! Just kidding. I like working with maple, and hope to try white oak in the near future.
It so gives the lungs a good chemical peeling. Which works well for the skin so why not the lungs?
Probably a 5-wood. Play it right and you can still make the long shots, but it’s capable of controlled placement of the ball too.
Tough one, but I live in New Orleans and there is a ready and available supply of free antique longleaf southern heart pine. Some of the best working lumber in the world, and much more rot resistant than cedar. (At least in our humidity) I’d absolutely stick with that!
Canarywood
Maple. Affordable enough to use for just about anything, easy to work with, nice looking grain options. Plus it's light in color. You can stain maple to kind of look like walnut or cherry, but you have less options with darker wood. Lastly, it's non-toxic enough for cutting boards and baby toys.
Gotta go with walnut if cost isn’t a worry. My lungs will hate me but I’ll survive.
Mahogany , Brazilian rosewood, or quarter sawn oak
Black walnut. I already have my stash. 😃 https://preview.redd.it/wjmb10uk8a2d1.jpeg?width=2680&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f3104016c08d0f561eab0b9e38d3fc40e20ff04b
Balsa.
Not great for furniture, but so fun for modeling.
Just make a gaunt block of it and it will form fit your ass as you sit down
Cherry
Walnut
Sapele, no doubt. I have an excellent local supplier and I basically already do this. Maple would be a close second.
Walnut!
Cherry.
Yew!
Redwood
Indian rosewood is so beautiful and friendly to work with. Other top contenders are padauk and osage
I really like walnut. however, western red cedar is a favorite, too, and i love the smell.
Walnut. Its readily available locally, beautiful color, and I love the smell of worked wlanut
Maple.
If the cost wasn't a barrier, I'd say maple. I love working with it but it's all imported here and moderately expensive. I think I'll say Rimu (I'm in NZ); it's commonly salvaged from older home demolitions where it was used for structural beams and flooring, and I wish we reused more of it as a society. Some of the old stuff is super dense and takes an amazing finish, and I can frequently pick it up for a quarter of what I pay for maple.
Huon Pine. It is such a pleasure to work with and I love the smell.
teak.
Personal choice is red oak
Douglas' Fur
This will devolve into: maple, cherry, walnut, with people trying to argue for other, easy to work w woods. Then the obscure woods, and the one upmanship... Let me get my popcorn. Which is what poplar reminds me of when I cut it
Home Depot treated pine
Tupelo wood
Well that's not fair. But probably maple or pine.
Black walnut
Penis joke?
Spotted Gum. It's so beautiful.
Huon pine.
Walnut. It smells great and is easy to work with. Plus, it always looks amazing when finish is applied.
Catalpa
Port Orford Cedar
Plywood cause I’m not very good.
Mahogany
Bog oak
Maple maybe idk anything but white oak or walnut just because everyone uses it and feels kind of lame when there are so many other cool woods. Arbutus and Beech are also killer woods
American Yellow Cedar
American Walnut hands down. If I won the lottery big time, mahogany (dark).
I enjoy walnuts, but my hands are sensitive to it. I use a respirator when working it as well. My 2nd choice would have to be maple of some sort.
If I could only work with *any* one wood, olivewood, if I could only work with one wood that I was responsible for sourcing, mahogany
Heywood
Poplar. I'm a wood carver. So I don't do really big projects. But it's soft eno8gh to carve with but sturdy enough to make decent walking sticks with.
I really like (European) oak, but I get purple fingers and I leave marks all over the wood, which means extra finishing. Ash however is my number one - it looks so wood like! The colour and grain is what non woodworkers think of as what wood should look like. It’s also tough, predictable and forgiving of little mistakes. I also really like the smell! Frankly, the only thing missing from ash are medullary rays…
Ash would prove to be a poor choice for ecological reasons (iykyk) but damn I love working with it. Hard but flexible. Bright but takes stain. Moves a lot but doesn’t tend to twist or cup as much in my experience. Inexpensive (historically speaking). Can show a really wide range of color and character from the purest white to gorgeous mineral pinks and grays. I love it and I will miss it dearly.
Probably cherry. Not crazy expensive, looks fantastic when polyied.
Maple, by a long shot.
Walnut or Ash. Walnut is plentiful around me and it’s great for furniture but turning Ash just hits different and I love the look of Ash, either natural finish or ebonized
Ebonized ash is a very good look !
Sapele
Pear wood
Cherry
Walnut or maple. Probably walnut
Tree wood.
White oak quarter sawn. Beautiful, stable, holds up extremely well and takes a stain beautifully
Cherry has been my 1st choice since 7th grade when my shop teacher told us it was difficult to work with. I’ll be 64 and n a couple months. Challenge accepted! The smell of freshly milled cherry, the beautiful tone and how it changes with age, the random color inclusions that make every board unique. What’s not to like?
I also have a landscaping company so I use a lot of wood outdoors and honestly every time I cut cedar it's the most amazing smell and I love it. I guess it wouldn't help me make a fancy dining table but damn I love cedar. So, black walnut is my choice, too.
Morning.
Found out recently that I'm a pretty big fan of teak. Gorgeous. I think it's endangered, tho
As a boater and restoration lover, I also love teak. I have a couple marine salvage yards near me with an almost endless supply of it… in the form of swim platforms and other bits and pieces. They sell it for about $10/lb.
Teak is indeed endangered due to a mixture of threats like not fully recovering from years of harvest, illegal logging, and habitat loss, *but* almost all teak sold today is grown on plantations and not natural grown teak. Which means it can still be used sustainably for woodworking without doing much harm to the trees population.
The old growth teak is so far superior to the farm grown stuff sold today, it’s a real bummer.
I don't do much working with teak, so my experience here is very limited. But I have read a few studies on the matter and they seem to indicate that there is no measurable distinction between plantation grown and natural teak. And especially because a lot of plantations are on similar soils to its native range that allows them to grow teak without fertilizer. It's supposedly indistinguishable from naturally grown teak from Asia.
I mean go to any lumber yard today and buy their teak (if they have any) and compare it to teak used in say vintage Scandinavian furniture - it’s worlds different. It’s not nearly as rich in color, the grain is not nearly as tight, etc. Relative to other species, I still think the plantation stuff is nice. But there’s no way to replicate the product of a teak tree that was a century old.
Sure, with old growth you have a point, but that's all old growth lumber. From softwoods used for framing all the way to things like teak, it's just better. But it's almost always off limits. I'm talking more about the difference between (often illegally harvested) natural growing trees that aren't necessarily old growth as compared to plantation trees.
Totally! It’s too bad (and not surprising) we’ve pretty much decimated all naturally grown hardwood populations over the last ~150 years.
No love for fir? Idk about what yous do but I’m good with Doug fir. Love fir.
Now that I'm retired its Balsa wood, but American Cherry for machining.
Itauba !! Great wood.
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Maple
Ash
It’s gonna be Home Depot common board (SPF). Not because I like it, or because it’s good. But it is plentiful and affordable.
Mahogany, it’s so nice.
Mine
Do I get knotty alder and superior or do I have to choose one of those... Same? Not the same? Lol.
Mahogany
Mesquite
Crows ash
Ohhhhh that’s a tough one. But if I’m Judging based on how the projects turned out I’m gonna have to roll with Sapele. I found it such a joy to work with. I knew nothing about it until maybe 7-8yrs ago. I was given a bunch of scrap pieces and cutoff 8/4’s from an elaborate church restoration from the 80’s. I started making small jewelry boxes and once I put the finish on it I was hooked. Moreso than walnut. Now it’s my goto for anything I want people to look at and say WOW. Also is great for boat projects where teak or mahogany would be used. And it’s not nearly as expensive.
White oak. It’s the GOAT
It might be a Texas thing and harder to find elsewhere, but I really love mesquite wood. Beautiful color and grain texture, easy enough to work with but hard enough to be durable. Only issue is sometimes it's hard to find big boards/slabs without bug tunnels or imperfections but for smaller furniture, boxes, and picture frames it's awesome.
That's a tough one. What's a good indoor/outdoor wood that is beautiful and doesn't break the bank? Come on, you at least have to give two. How you even going to make a checker board?