Black walnut is one of North Americas finest cabinet woods, equally valuable as lumber or sliced into decorative  veneer.
Know Your Woods
Know Your Woods
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Before the introduction of aniline dyes padauk was a renowned dye wood.
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The wood is rare and expensive. Common uses include kitchen utensils, bowls, cutting boards and decorative turned objects. It is occasionally sliced into veneer.
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Familiar and much loved by generations of woodworkers, genuine mahogany consists of two closely related species.
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Furniture makers in the Arts and Crafts Movement, such as by Gustav Stickley, used quarter-sawn White Oak as the signature wood for their mission style furniture.
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Yellow Poplar is a straight, uniformly grained wood with a medium texture. The typically large sapwood has a pale white colour, while the heart wood is a light yellow to dark green when freshly cut, but tends to age to a dark brown colour.
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With over 250 species of oak worldwide, Northern red oak is North America’s most widely used and available hardwoods, and with good reason.
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When first milled, red alder has a whitish colour, and on exposure to air, turns light brown with a yellow or reddish tinge.
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The predominant use of Douglas fir is in the pulp industry, and construction and building products: lumber, plywood, doors, studding, roof trusses, floor and ceiling joists, window frames, laminated beams, and general millwork. Nonetheless, it makes a wonderful wood for furniture and fine cabinetry.
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Elm is moderately heavy, hard, stiff, has excellent steam bending characteristics and moderate dimensional stability.
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Only one of the 10 known species of beech is native to Canada. It grows from the southernmost part of the Great Lakes into the St. Lawrence Forest region and the Acadian Forest.
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The wood is heavy, hard and strong, having about the same specific gravity as hard maple. It has very good bending properties, with good crushing strength and shock resistance.
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Pines have a straight grain and uniform texture. Eastern pine has creamy white sapwood with yellowish white or light brown heartwood. Western pine has white sapwood and a pale to light red-brown heartwood that darkens with exposure to light.
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Basswood is renowned for being a top-notch carving wood. It’s also made into many items including toys, model ships, picture frames, musical instruments, shutters, handles, mouldings and trim work.
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Cedars are more durable than other softwoods. They are dimensionally stable and dry with little shrinkage, but have low strength and shock resistance, as well as poor steam bending qualities.
