Hardwoods certainly make for a popular choice for furniture woodworking projects. The biggest downside to working with this wood type is the cost of the wood itself. But with the variety of textures, grain patterns, and colors, it's hard to resist the beauty that this type of wood brings to your woodworking projects. Let's take a look at some of the more common hardwood types and their properties. Ash: This wood type is a pale to white colored wood with a straight grain. It does accept stain quite well and it is reasonably easy to work with. Ash is becoming increasingly harder and harder to find and as such is generally found at larger lumberyards. Birch: Yellow and white are the two varieties that this type of wood comes in. Birch is less expensive than other woods in the hardwood category. The white birch wood is closer in look to maple due to its whiter colored appearance. The wood is reasonably hard and has good availability. Cherry: Is a type of wood to work with that is very popular. It easily stains and finishes and get more beautiful with age. Relatively speaking cherry is a softer hardwood type that is a very popular choice for furniture making. Price wise, because of the high demand, the cost of cherry is higher, but you should be able to find it at most lumberyards. Mahogany: This is another great furniture woods. Mahogany is also a bit of a softer hardwood and it produces beautiful furniture with its deep red tinting and straight grains. This wood type will accept stains and will finish out very nicely. Cost is prohibitive and the only place to find it is at a good lumberyard. Maple: The maple wood type actually comes is a soft and hard maple. In fact, the hard maple can be difficult to even work with. Soft maple is indeed easy to work with. Both stain out better than most of the woods. Generally in good supply at your local lumberyard and the cost of this wood type is less expensive than the others. Oak: This is the wood type that most probably think of when it comes to furniture. Oak is strong yet easy to work with. Oak's grain produces beautiful patterns and comes in a white and red variety. White oak is the most commonly seen amongst furniture projects and you'll need to head to the lumberyard for white oak, while red oak is available at homecenters. Poplar: This type of wood is one of the lower costing woods. Poplar is a softer hardwood which makes it much easier to work with. However, since polar isn't the most beautiful of the woods it isn't used much in furniture... unless perhaps it will be painted. Many wood workers will use poplar for the parts of the furniture piece that won't be visible such as the drawers. Teak: Is becoming harder and harder to find and as such is also becoming very expensive. This wood type is also moisture resistant and as such is used for outdoor projects. As far as the hardness goes, this type of wood tips the hardness scale at about a medium. Walnut: Walnut isn't overly difficult to work and its rich brown color is certainly beautiful, it is somewhat hard to find and as such is becoming more expensive. Regardless, this type of wood is relatively easy to work with and you can use it to add accent, trim, and class to any woodworking project. That wraps up our look at some of the most common hardwooods and a bit of info on each of them. So get out to your local lumberyard and take a look at some of these woods first hand and you really appreciate the beauty of the hardwoods.
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