We've developed these charts of basic wood characteristics to help guide you with selecting a hardwood for your next project. They should be helpful as a visual reference and for comparing woods to one another.
A relative scale that represents the dry weight of wood between approximately 2 and 8 pounds per board foot. Red Oak, for instance weighs close to 3.5 pounds per board foot when dry and planed on two sides.
This is also a relative scale. It represents the Janka hardness score for the wood being viewed. The Janka score is the industry standard for gauging the ability of a given species to tolerate denting and normal wear, as well as being a good indication of the effort required to either nail or saw the particular wood. The score is determined by a test in which the force necessary to embed a .444-inch steel ball to half its diameter in the wood is measured. As an example, Red Oak has a Janka score of 1290 pounds.
Texture refers to the grain of a wood: Ash and Oak are pretty coarse. So is mahogany, but it's a different kind of coarse. And Hard Maple is very fine. Knowing the texture will help you determine certain characteristics of wood that cannot be conveyed by a graph on a website - use this scale as a guide. Coarse woods, in general, require a sanding sealer or pore filler to achieve a glassy smooth finish. And some fine-textured woods have a tendency to burn while being sawn or routed. Except when they don't. And vice versa.
This aspect displays general idea as to how easy the wood is to work with hand and power tools. While some woods may be more difficult to work than others, the characteristics that make a wood easy or difficult are multiple and diverse. If the scale shows that a wood looks to be difficult to work, it may be for any number of reasons, therefore making this part of the scale rather subjective.
- Teak, for instance, is a wood that typically saws and routs very nicely, but wears on your blades and cutters faster than most woods. It also cannot be glued with regular wood glue. These two facets make the workability scale for Teak read more to the "Difficult" end.
- Hard Maple is a wood that burns easily, making it a moderate wood to work
- Pine, though soft, contains pitch, a substance that gums your bits and blades. Also making it not extremely easy to work.
- Interlocking grain in woods that are quartersawn (such as zebrawood, sapele, shedua, etc.) typically produces chip-out when using mechanical planers - another point in dificulty in workability.
These are just a few examples of working characteristics that would bring the difficulty level up. A wood that's difficult to work may only be difficult due to one or two types of scenarios.
Like the working characteristics, the definition of easy or difficult to finish varies wildly. Most woods accept lacquer, polyurethane, and oil finishes without issue.
Some things that make a wood difficult to finish:
- Coarse or open-grained woods will require a sanding sealer or pore filler to acheive a glassy smooth finish if using lacquer or poly and if that's the look you want.
- Oily woods (teak, cocobolo, etc) will not allow hard-shell finishes (lacquer, polyurethane) to adhere
- Some woods, like hard maple or pine, do not take stains evenly
The finishing scale is just a general guide.