What are your favorite woods to work with?

I am new to working with roundwood and so far have been enjoying the process with namely maple.

If it is fresh cut, the bark peels off easily by hand.

I have had good luck with drying but the real test will be trying to carve something out of it.

What is your favorite type of wood to work with? Why?

I'm eager to hear everyone's thoughts.

Timothy Norton wrote:

I am new to working with roundwood and so far have been enjoying the process with namely maple.

If it is fresh cut, the bark peels off easily by hand.

I have had good luck with drying but the real test will be trying to carve something out of it.

What is your favorite type of wood to work with? Why?

I'm eager to hear everyone's thoughts.

I’m a huge fan of whatever is on site, around here it’s Douglas fir, Western Hemlock, and the Pacific Maple. Oh and Cedar but that’s got uses all its own.

I like Douglas fir for things like Timbers to build a barn. They grow pretty straight and I know that 6” rounds last over a hundred year in a barn (I’ll post a picture to show)

But my countertops are all burley maple with Purple Heart bow ties.

The bed of my hotrod pickup truck is cherry… which is insane considering how much it costs now. When I did my truck’s bed in 2011 I was working for a contractor and got the bed boards for a next to nothing work trade. I haven’t  seen many other beds at car shows made out of cherry. Usually Oak or some are even Pine?! And I’m like idk about using pine but then I remember those trucks don’t put anything in the back so pine will be just fine.
Tim this is a cool thread I hope other wood workers get down on this! But what grows like a weed tree on your homestead?

Eastern red cedar for posts or poles for beans and simple garden trellising ,it has decent lateral strength for drying racks as well,most tobacco barns around here used long straight cedar poles that you knew would break with your weight plus the tobacco weight,they never break just bend down then spring back up,water resistant,and mostly bug resistant and very nice to carve,not a good wood to turn because of the dust but it can be beautiful as a bowl.

Hickory is a nice wood for cabinetry and hardwood flooring,it has a nice white and dark color that makes nice contrast and very distinct grain patterns,it has a fine tight grain and bends very well for baskets and good for bowmaking as well.

If Osage Orange is in your area it is an awesome wood as well but will check and crack if dried to quickly but it does turn well if done while fresh cut,very dense and heavy but is very durable and has a nice yellow color which has a great natural shimmer when polish sanded.

Using what is available is the best option when you can,it is usually the least expensive and the most regenerative

I'm about 3/4 of the way done building an electric guitar right now. The finished body will be made of silver maple, because that's the species of tree that died in my yard and maple is strong enough to resist the tension of guitar strings.

But since this is my first time building a guitar, I built a "dummy" body first, to experiment and learn and make mistakes on. I built it out of edge-jointed 2x construction lumber that I salvaged from dumpsters outside houses in the corn-fields-turned-subdivisions adjacent to my neighborhood. I.e. pine.

Not only is the pine wonderful because I saved it from the trash and paid nothing for it, but it's very lightweight and evidently does not affect the sound at all, at least not in a negative way. It gives me a slight pang of regret that I didn't simply build the guitar out of pine in the first place.

Oh well. I've got a beautiful maple body now, cavities routed, waiting to be drilled and carved.

Guitars, countertops, truck beds!

That is incredible!

I'm very VERY new into woodworking so I  can only aspire at this point.

I'm planning on carving out of maple and box elder just due to the supply that I have on hand but I am going to dicker with whatever I can find.

I lucked out on a hill terracing project that I had a coworker who offered to drop off some 10" log sections made out of black locust. It has been a bear to move but everything I see says the wood should resist decomposition pretty well. I still need to secure them horizontally with backing stakes but it has been raining every time I plan on going out to process some smaller trees.

I am realizing that some chisels and a froe might go on my Christmas list this year, maybe Santa will hook me up. Maybe if I make a few cooking spoons for the old lady first.

Box elder,very good soft hardwood,we use it at work in the cabinet shop i work at,it takes stains very well,enhances grain patterns nicely.

i forgot about elm,there are many types of elm trees that have many different traits and uses.Some are soft that are nice for carving,i think red elm is a good one for that,others are straight grain and make beautiful furniture wood.You can research it more to choose a variety that you have to use where needed.Most elms are twisty and make nice bends and are good for basket making.We have the dutch elm disease now and it has killed many of our elms but others are going strong still,maybe more immune to it i guess.

I've used a lot of mahogany over the years. Initially when I was working for REI and using it for trim when building sewing stations. I loved working with it, but it was so perfect looking it almost looked fake.  Later, I got some HUGE pallets that were all mahogany with tight knots and a lot of grain character. That was nice for its grain character (a 1x4 with 8% moisture content weighed as much as a 12% 2x of hemfir.

I like maple, but it can be a wild mouse, if not stored right. It's allow you to make a curved stair rail, even if you don't want it.

Used a LOT of poplar. I'd never use it where it was going to see a lot of abuse, or I needed strength.

Love oak because it's never given me much fuss. If I can get quarter-sawn or rift-cut, it's near on being a favorite for the flecking patterns in it.

Speaking of patterns, I've grabbed sycamore off craigslist free adds and I love the grain, when cut right. I re-sawed a lot of short pieces (2' or less) and it wins on many levels. It's got tight grain, so can be used for cooking utensils.

I've got blocks of walnut, live oak, mesquite, mahogany, fir, maple, acacia, cherry, teak, Russian olive,. . . .   In the end, and contrary what so many said down over the years, I don't think there is a bad wood, though some are better suited to certain projects than others.

Here's a 2x4 or two, for example: