The rack is deliberately short. Six species learned properly beats thirty ordered from a photograph, and every one of these is here because it does something the other five do not.
Hardness is the Janka figure — the force it takes to press a steel ball half its diameter into the wood. Movement is tangential shrinkage: how much a flatsawn board narrows across its width between wet and bone dry, which in a Michigan house is the difference between a January and an August top. Both are real published figures.
| Wood | Hardness | Movement | Per bd ft | What it is for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| White ash | 1320 | 7.8% | $6.50 | Benches and chairs. It bends and it takes a beating. |
| Hard maple | 1450 | 9.9% | $8.25 | Worktops and anything that will be cut on. |
| Black cherry | 950 | 7.1% | $9.00 | Dining tables. It ages in the room it lives in. |
| White oak | 1360 | 10.5% | $9.25 | Anything that has to last a century. It is the default for a reason. |
| Sapele | 1410 | 5.7% | $11.00 | Where the room is dark already and the piece has to hold its own. |
| Black walnut | 1010 | 7.8% | $16.50 | Desks and case pieces. It photographs better than it wears. |
Fraxinus americana
Pale, coarse and springy. The cathedral figure is the loudest of the six — ash is what you choose when you want the grain to be the event.
Benches and chairs. It bends and it takes a beating.
Acer saccharum
The quietest wood in the shop and the hardest of the domestics. Figure is almost absent, which is the point — it puts everything on the form.
Worktops and anything that will be cut on.
Prunus serotina
Arrives pink and goes deep red-brown over about a year of daylight. The piece you take home is not the color of the piece you will own.
Dining tables. It ages in the room it lives in.
Quercus alba
Closed pores, so it will hold a drink without staining, and quartersawn it throws the ray fleck — the pale flecks lying across the grain.
Anything that has to last a century. It is the default for a reason.
Entandrophragma cylindricum
Interlocked grain, so it moves less than anything else here and shows a ribbon that shifts as you walk past it. The one wood on this list that is not local.
Where the room is dark already and the piece has to hold its own.
Juglans nigra
The most expensive board in the rack and the one everybody asks for. Soft for a hardwood, which is why it carves and why it dents.
Desks and case pieces. It photographs better than it wears.
Six inches of walnut and six feet of it are different objects. Draw the piece in each before you decide.