5 WOODS Better Than PINE

[Music] [Music] what workers of YouTube great to see you again my name is marco from woodworkers source thanks for checking in so i know how intimidating it can be to go to the wood store when you're first starting out woodworking I get it it's kind of an overwhelming experience you got a lot of woods coming at you you may never have seen before you get a lot of terminology you've never heard before plus it feels like you're about to spend a lot of money I'm gonna try to help you make a more informed choice and have a better time building project at first you're probably gonna find yourself going to the big-box store where they have mountains of SPF construction level SPF stands for spruce pine and fir that's the stuff that comes in two by fours two by eights one by fours etc it's a fine choice when your budget is tight because it's cheap its lightweight and then it comes to these handy uniform sizes however the wood is only partially dried and that's for a couple of reasons the first one is to keep the cost down drying takes time and time costs money and second screws and nails will glide right into wood that's only partially dry and that's pretty desirable on a construction site where they need to knock things together really quick for that situation it's just right but for furniture and decorative home woodworking it's not exactly ideal so if you've ever picked out boards at the box store yourself I'm sure you've seen the downside the construction lumber you got to fight through a lot of twists a lot of bowing a lot of cracking a lot of cuffing and all that stuff and that's because those boards have just gone unused a little too long I'm only talking two or three days here when they left the sawmill those boards were straight but with green and just slightly dried lumber the clock is ticking as wood dries out it shrinks and when it shrinks it does all kinds of bad stuff like twisting and bowing and cupping and cracking but to be fair about it the way that lumber is processed isn't bad suited for a particular situation that situation is when they're gonna use that wood quickly and then cover it up with wall board or paneling or paint yet when we're talking about decorative woodworking that's probably not what you're going to do so while you can use SPF construction lumber in your home woodworking projects the experience might be more frustrating than the cost savings so I think I can expose you to a few hardwoods that are not only better suited for the nicer stuff that you can make around your home but they're also inexpensive they're great to use and they look really nice soft maple poplar beech knotty alder and white oak let's check them out this one's soft maple it's a super clean wood really easy to machine bite its name soft maple it's plenty hard enough for furniture it's got about the hardness of walnut sans really quickly you can even carve it and shape it as much as you want and a cool aspect of this wood is that you can use various dies to get really bold or vibrant colors on here even make it black if you wanted to it's pretty cool the primary thing to be aware of with this wood is to not get it confused with hard maple it's more popular cousin art maples totally different species and it's heavier and harder than this stuff if you had a board of the same size of hard maple and soft maple and held them you would notice a difference in the weight soft maple would be noticeably lighter in the end soft maple is really inexpensive it's easy to work with and you can do a lot with it bubblers cheap it's super soft it's super easy to machine then the boards they can get really wide like 12 inches in wide air a lot of times it has a lot of color variety that's downside to it but not much else machines as easily as poplar does it's a great utility wood for that reason because it's so fine grained and inexpensive it's great for painted projects or you can also use gel stains to make this kind of look like cherry or walnut if you want to spend the time doing that but painting and staining is not required with this wood it looks fine all on its own - so poplar can have this inconsistent color variety it can be this like this grayish white color now these green streaks you'll see these purplish streaks throughout it a lot of color variety in there even with under a finish you give this stuff enough time and that green and that purple kind of fades off to brown because it's on the softer side like on that construction lumber it's really prone to denting as you just handle it around your shop and you work with it so it really pays to learn about how to steam out dents using a household iron and it will damp rag if you haven't seen that before I'm sure there's a billion videos out there on how to do that but all that said poplar is a great utility wood that super easy to work with plus you can paint it or stain it to make it whatever color you want there you go then you go a little bit harder you got this wood called beech so it's really fine-grained dense wood it's not really absurdly hard or difficult to work with plus it's surprisingly inexpensive for a wood that comes all the way from Europe this is really nice referred to because it makes such crisp rock solid joints and it's not really very heavy they use a lot of beach in the furniture you can get at IKEA so if you ever wanted to mimic a piece of furniture from there or match something that you already had beach is probably the stuff to use Beach does not stain well at all it's better suited clear finishes plus it's actually warmer in color than soft maple it's more creamy tan and as a really pretty distinct character in its grain patterns if you get up close and check it out by the numbers it's neck-and-neck with hard maple very similar hardness very similar density very similar weight Beach seams to machine and work a little bit nicer than hard maple does if you prefer woods with more character than the ones I just showed you the ones you want to bounce over to or knotty alder and white oh here's it knotty alder is all about it's about a softer that's poplar but it's loaded with all these really sound and tight knots and just like poplar it's super easy to manipulate to shape it to sand it to cut it piece of cake to work with this stuff so the thing about alder is that it's really a West Coast wood we see it around here for a lot of Southwest style rustic stuff entry doors furniture cabinetry another Southwest flavor decorative woodwork like that of these five woods white oak is probably the most different weight oak has a much more distinct grain pattern in an open texture plus it's the hardest and heaviest of these five so really popular wood for good reason it's got this nice warm tan color especially with the finish plus its mid-range price just nails a sweet spot white oak is a really great choice for your outdoor projects too it can handle getting wet and it can take a beating out in the Sun plus in the u.s. white oak is the wood of choice for making barrels for bourbon and whiskey otherwise it's a really wonderful furniture wood it's stable it's tough and it's good-looking just like you be aware to that white oak comes in different cuts flats on quarter sawn and rifts on we have a totally separate video that covers the difference in those cuts but basically flats on white oak is the most economical of those okay I think that just about covers it if I missed anything if you still got questions use post them below we'll try to answer and as usually you subscribe give us the little thumbs up thingy down below as long as you're saying nice things I want to hear your feedback and again my name is Marc I'm from woodworkers source we sell wood like this to people like you if you are in our area come visit us we'd love to see you and if not visit our website we make it really easy to buy this online have it shipped right to your door thanks

Channel: Woodworkers Source

Views: 1,251,350

Keywords: woodworking, wood, lumber, how-to, custom woodwork, woodwork, learning, diy, do better, make something

Id: FfVXPlpDoRY

Length: 6min 38sec (398 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 15 2019