Wood - what's your favorite / least favorite

I think everyone has a favorite / least favorite wood - here's mine.

My Favorite is Red Oak - I like it's appearance - it finishes to a golden color without any tinting and I like it's open grain texture. For workability it's about as easy as it comes - machines like a dream. True green it smells a lot like puke, but not to bad...

My least favorite is Black Walnut - although in small amount is it tolerable. If I'm not careful and wear a good dust mask and shower immediately after sawing it. The stuff tears me up - I'm not right for days afterwords. It has that smell that just about makes me sick to my stomach. Drys my skin right out and sets me off into a far way land - I can't concentrate and my short term memory goes on a picnic for a few days. As far as workability it's not bad - but I try and stay away from it if at all possible.

Originally Posted by erasmussen

My least favorite wood, is flat wood
My favorite wood is round wood

I can arrange some round wood for you - question is can you turn it

[Travis Porter]

Originally Posted by jeff...

On a side note - I know a sawyer up in Va that was talked into squaring up some recycled creosote soaked light pole - I think it was like 16 poles. It just about killed him - he was in the hospital for over a week - broke out in a rash from head to toe and inside his lungs. You guys please be careful when messing around with older recycled wood, especially old pine - you never know what kind of treatment it may have had and what is waiting for you to be exposed to.

Thanks

Aaaahhh, creosote.

My father was a firm believer in creosote. Used to buy it at Kmart by the gallon. We tried to spray it one time with a wagner sprayer. Stuff got into a fine mist and ate us up alive for the day. We ended up going to the mall just to be in air conditioning as the stuff is HOT!!!

[JimD]

I like the species of wood I have worked with (Oak, maple, cherry, beech, walnut, pine, fir, mahogany, and purpleheart that I can remember). I've used oak the most because of price and because it fit my projects. In oak, I like red, red oak. There is so much variety of oak that there is some I do not care for in both white and red but more good boards in red. I do not like the grey stuff and especially the stuff that stinks when you cut it. A nice red piece, however, is almost the color of cherry that hasn't seen too much sun. It seems to me that the heavier oak is, the more likely it is to stink.

In maple, I like the stuff with figure, which fortunately is not rare. Hard tends more to the grey color I do not care for, however.

Cherry also has figure a fair amount of the time. It also varies quite a bit in color. Redder is prettier to me but figure trumps color. Some of it is more brown and I do not care as much for that.

In walnut, I prefer air dried to kiln dried. I do not like the grey color they get by steaming the wood trying to darken the sapwood. Air dried has purple highlights that is really nice. A lot of walnut I see seems to be limb wood with pith running through it. Combine that with kiln drying and you can get some pretty ugly walnut. Now when you find some air dried walnut from the trunk of the tree, with figure, I think you have the king of woods.

Softwoods are more utilitarian, to me. Nice for the right project but not as nice as hardwoods for most uses. I put poplar with the softwoods although I understand it is technically a hard wood (deciduous). They all lack figure, machine easily, finish well (escept for pine with a lot of resin) and damage relatively easily.

Jim

[fivestring]

My favorite is just about any wood except mdf.

My least favorite is mdf.


Oh wait.....is mdf even a wood

[pcooper]

Originally Posted by fivestring

Oh wait.....is mdf even a wood

Well, if you REALLY stretch it, yes it is, but it goes through the paper/cardboard thing first as I understand it. I think it is about useless.

[cpowell]

With money as a consideration, I like cherry.

If money were no object then bubinga. Bloodwood, lacewood, padauk, and wenge follow bubinga but are a considerable distance behind.

I'm not a fan of coloring wood, regardless of how it's colored. LOML has a different outlook and her vote gets weighted heavily. She does not care for light-colored woods unless used as accent pieces.

I like zebrawood but have found it to be difficult to machine sometimes. Same goes for purpleheart.


Chuck