Good Morning Friends,

Now that we have determined that there are only two types of wood and being both hardwood and soft wood. How do we determine the difference? If you get hit with a 2 x 4 it hurts like the dickens so how could it be a soft wood?

I say that the hardwoods are the ones that lose the leaves every year, and the soft are the ones that keep them, like the pines.  And even dried softwood has the sap in it to plug up your sandpaper while the hardwoods don't.

But if they are dead softwood trees, do they still have the sap in them? 

Great question so I decided to do some digging.  On About.com this is the answer I got, "A hardwood tree is often, but not necessarily, a harder and denser wood than a softwood. The term comes from old logging camp "rules of thumb" where woods were sometimes named by their resistance to sawing."  But there are always exceptions to the rule such as, "A great example of an exception to the rule is balsa wood. Balsa is one of the lightest, least dense woods there is, but it is considered a hardwood."  Now that was a surprise to me.

 

Check out this PDF:

http://www.faculty.sfasu.edu/mcbroommatth/Lectures/Wood_Science/Lecture_5_Hardwood_Structure.PDF

Check out http://tinytimbers.com/janka.htm for the hardness scale of many types of woods.

good morning Ralph, is it that the hard woods have more density than soft woods? and by the way, i thought we were suposed to answer these on our own, not go to the archives for answers....

 

I believe it has to deal with the grain structure of the wood. Tight grained wood is hard wood and open grained wood is soft wood. Case being if you look at Curly Maple it is considered a softwood while there is Hard Maple. I also believe this applies to white pine vs. yellow pine or even fir. The yellow pine was used in construction of barns etc. back in the day while the white pine was used in cabinets and smaller pieces. I am really surprised to hear that Balsa is considered a hard wood though.

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Wayne
God Bless our Troops and Protect them.

Push your fingernail into the flat grain. If it leaves an impression, it's soft wood.

Forgive an old educator who always wanted students to back up their assertions.  I've heard that pressing your fingernail into the wood also is a way to determine hard wood from soft.  Good idea but nothing to back it up if you really understand the difference between hard and soft woods, but take a plank of wood that has both sap and heart wood on it and tell me that it is hard or soft wood if you press on both parts of the plank.  I like the old "wives' tales," but I cannot learn from them without much fact behind them. 

gaylord howe said:

good morning Ralph, is it that the hard woods have more density than soft woods? and by the way, i thought we were suposed to answer these on our own, not go to the archives for answers....

 

Valid point. Also an old educator here and one who recognizes the difference between heart wood and sap wood. Therefore I would consider this "old wives tale" to have at least some factual bases. Point being, would you consider the sap wood of walnut as being hard or would you make a blanket statement that all walnut is hardwood? 

Phil Rasmussen said:

Forgive an old educator who always wanted students to back up their assertions.  I've heard that pressing your fingernail into the wood also is a way to determine hard wood from soft.  Good idea but nothing to back it up if you really understand the difference between hard and soft woods, but take a plank of wood that has both sap and heart wood on it and tell me that it is hard or soft wood if you press on both parts of the plank.  I like the old "wives' tales," but I cannot learn from them without much fact behind them. 

gaylord howe said:

good morning Ralph, is it that the hard woods have more density than soft woods? and by the way, i thought we were suposed to answer these on our own, not go to the archives for answers....

 

I think it's time for Ralph to to come in with the authoritive answer on this one.  Myself, I'm sticking with my deciduous - conifer opinion.  I really don't think that the density of the wood has much to do with the hard or soft wood classification.  Someone mentioned the hard and soft maple example, I think they are both hard wood.  Someone else mentioned the open and closed grain.  White oak is a fairly tight grain while red oak is pretty open.  In my experience the pines all have had tighter grains than the red oak.  There has to be a simple answer to this one.

I'm in the Boomershine camp.

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Ron Dudelston
Above and Beyond WoodWorks

Probably for the lack of a better way, the "Tree Gods" have determined that for a tree to be a hardwood, it must have leaves.

For softwwod trees, there has to be "needles."  But the variables within these guidelines are enornous.

Examples:  Douglas Fir is a very hard softwood.  It is used qiute a bit in manufacturing trusses for new homes.

The "Balsa Wood Tree"  (as mentioned) has leaves and is therefore catergorized as a hardwood.

 

Easy way..  Leaves = Hardwood.  Needles = Softwood.

Larry 

a hardwood is a deciduous tree and has leaves, a softwood tree is a coniverous and has needles that stay on year round, the exception would be tamarack (around here anyway) that is a softwood, but loses its needles in the fall.  Tamarack when dry is also very hard, so hard that it is difficult to drive a nail in it.  When houses were built of tamarack around here years ago they were built while the lumber was still on the green side so it could be nailed. There may be some other exceptions to the rule in other localities.

Good Morning All,

Great turn out on this one for sure and I am glad that one answer was about the Tamarack soft pine for it is the only soft wood that does in deed shed it needles. Also I don't mind a person looking up topics that could be used as an answer and the hardness chart was a good example. Deciduous trees do in fact loose their leaves and most are nut bearing while the conifers bear cones.

Thank you all for your support.