Good Afternoon Friends,

For your various projects, what is your favorite wood to use in the making of the project?

maple, walnut, cherry, hickory, birch, aspen, and ambrosia _________ ...

Free wood.  I have rarely purchased wood.  I have always tried to recycle wood and always rescue good wood that has been left for the trash.  I also process downed trees into useable lumber too.  I am not talking construction lumber but have salvaged that too when the need arises.  I have to sheds with frames built with reclaimed construction lumber. 

Other than free wood like Dan I like cherry and red oak.

Have used about everything......don't really like maple, though.   Working with Cherry right now.

Walnut or red oak.

Maple and oak are the 2  that I have used the most

Depends on what I'm doing. Flat work, walnut is my favorite with cherry a very distant second. Since I've gotten more avid about turning, maple, maple and maple, would be my first three choices. Then cherry, then somewhere down the list, walnut. I don't tend to use exotics.

 

Steve

 Just as I thought you might choose and as for myself I prefer Red Oak, White Oak, Cherry, Walnut and Poplar.

I try to stay away from Walnut as much as I can due to the toxic qualities because of the problems in my lungs .

 

Thank you all for your replies.

Cherry, Walnut, Red Oak are all favorites, and easy to work with . On the other end of the spectrum, I've found Hard Maple, and Caribbean  Rosewood, are hard on me and the tools.

Edited November 14, 20169 yr by It Was Al B
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Used a lot of poplar, red & white oak, yellow & white pine and some maple & cherry; even used some basswood...

Hope to try some mulberry in about a year just to what I can do with it and will have some limited amount of apple too.

Grandpadave, You will find the mulberry is nice with red streaks running through it and makes for some nice turning. I like but, it is hard to find any large enough to turn any large projects.

8 minutes ago, Ralph Allen Jones said:

Grandpadave, You will find the mulberry is nice with red streaks running through it and makes for some nice turning. I like but, it is hard to find any large enough to turn any large projects.

Thanks Ralph; good info...I wondered if that might be the case...may have to budget for a mini or midi lathe down the road and see what damage I can do...you're right most I have to clean up is 4"-12" diameter stuff...hoping to re-saw some on the bandsaw, set aside, then glue up and maybe venture into the BS box world...so many inspiring projects on this site from very talented people...

Ralph, my wood of choice would have to be cherry.  The grain is tight and it takes dye beautifully.  Either white or red oak would probably sneak into second place.  Like you, my least favorite is walnut.  It is dirty and just flat stinks.

I personally like ash especially quarter sawn.  The Oak then Cherry.

 

 

Pine!  AKA "select pine" at HD.  Turns out all the furniture my wife had bought over the years is made from pine, so matching it is pretty easy.  It's all distressed too (on purpose....no kids!), so the usual objections to soft wood don't apply.  In plywood, I get a bit fancy, picking ponderosa pine for the greater number of knotholes in the panel (again, matches what we bought).  I like maple for durability (kids furniture).

If it's wood, or even just woody, I'll try to work with it. I'm an equal opportunity wood butcher.

I like to work with ash. Since I stain or color about everything I touch I find ash is the easiest   to work with. And working with spray lacquer makes ash even better to use.

White pine...

 

 

Nice looking, and original looking be