Knowing about wood and wood types makes selecting the correct wood for your project, and makes choosing the right project for the wood you have on hand, much easier.

A Guide to Furniture Woods

Almost any type of wood could be used to build furniture, but some woods have always been favored for their beauty, durability, and workability. Before 1900, most furniture was made with these woods: walnut, oak, mahogany, rosewood, fruitwoods, and rare wood veneers and inlays were in common use. American Colonial furniture, dependent on local availability, was made with maple, oak, walnut, birch, and cherry, as well as pine. The preferred furniture woods were readily available, so less attractive or durable woods were used only for hidden parts inside a piece. For this reason, pre-1900 furniture is almost always worth restoring.

Woods for Model Building

Below is a list of woods, their characteristics, and applicability to model building. Use it only as a guide. There are always exceptions. For example, normally oak isn't recommended for model work because of its large grain and porous nature; however, I've seen some beautiful models done in oak that was carefully selected to avoid the disadvantages.

Hardwood & Softwood Grade Definitions

Tips in selecting good wood in lumber stores. If you really want your work to be perfect, you must have the perfect wood for the job. You can only do that if you are capable of choosing it yourself. You can’t depend on others to do this for you because it is you who knows what to do with it. Here are some of the tips that you can use when you are choosing wood in the lumber store.

Know Your Woods

Amidst the importance of woods in our daily lives, we barely know the general facts about the trees from which they came from. Thus, it is about time to give credit where credit is due by discussing different tree species and the woods they produce. Here are some of the tree species classified into hardwoods and softwoods, together with the description of the wood they produce.

Selecting Good Wood

If you really want your work to be perfect, you must have the perfect wood for the job. You can only do that if you are capable of choosing it yourself. You can’t depend on others to do this for you because it is you who knows what to do with it.

Wood Species

In this section, each species or group of species is described in terms of its principal location, characteristics, and uses. Information on historical and traditional uses is also provided for some species. Common and botanical names follow the Checklist of United States Trees.

What is the difference between hardwood & softwood

The distinction between hardwood and softwood actually has to do with plant reproduction. All trees reproduce by producing seeds, but the seed structure varies. Hardwood trees are angiosperms, plants that produce seeds with some sort of covering. This might be a fruit, such as an apple, or a hard shell, such as an acorn.

Hardwoods

The term hardwood includes numerous species of trees and shrubs with dense, heavy wood. Depending on their density, hardwoods can be subdivided into "medium heavy," "heavy," "very heavy," and woods that actually sink in water called "ironwoods." Hardwoods are usually limited to flowering trees and shrubs because their wood contains water-conducting cells plus tightly-packed, thick-walled fiber cells which are lacking in the wood of conifers.