What wood for teaching?

[Beau]

https://www.wood-database.com/poplar/

See last paragraph, it's much the same as Wiki. One site does say to save confusion it is recommended that tulipwood is not referred to as poplar.

Brilliant so it's not poplar but we should and do call it poplar!

No confusion there then

 

[Phil Pascoe]

One site does say to save confusion it is recommended that tulipwood is not referred to as poplar.

 

[Beau]

One site does say to save confusion it is recommended that tulipwood is not referred to as poplar.

Apologies. I should wear my glasses.

Think I will refer to it as Tulip or Yellow poplar from now on. Dont want this handy wood getting turned into matches.

 

[Jacob]

Pine/softwood is easy to work, cheap, available. OK so you can't do fine dovetails but you wouldn't anyway with beginners, but it's the wood they are most likely to encounter out there in the real world. Then as they improve bring in other stuff (polar etc) to compare/contrast.
Using different wood is part of the learning process.
PS correction - you can do fine DTs with pine but it's easier with close grain softish hardwoods

 

[MikeG.]

Decent chiseling is very hard with pine, particularly the fast grown stuff we get these days. As the very first thing we'll be doing is sharpening, and the next thing basic chiseling, hauling chunks of broken wood out of an end grain might be a bit depressing for a beginner. It's how I learnt, as I said, but I'm not sure it's the best way. When I first tired working on a piece of walnut after using only pine for my first 10 years, I thought I was in paradise!

It's doable, of course. I did these by hand:

 

[Jacob]

.....When I first tired working on a piece of walnut after using only pine for my first 10 years, I thought I was in paradise!

Well yes me too.
But it's bloody expensive and you wouldn't want to make mistakes ending up as firewood!

 

[Sgian Dubh]

But seriously, you guys who teach, or if you've been to lessons lately, what do/ did you use? My personal preference is ash, but if there is something easier for beginners/ improvers to use, let me know.

Well, as someone with quite a lot of experience teaching basic woodworking, and advanced woodworking for that matter I suppose, the ideal wood for what you want is, as others have said, poplar aka, tulipwood, i.e., Liriodendron tulipifera. It's hard, but not too hard, diffuse porous, fine grained, works easily with hand and machine tools and, crucially, pretty cheap, so serious cock-ups aren't financially terminal. Most people think of poplar as either paint grade material or secondary wood in furniture because it's a bit soft, usually pretty plain, not generally especially attractive, etc, but if it's purely skills building you're aiming to impart it's ideal.

I'd avoid all the ring porous species, e.g., ash and oak to start with because beginners find the hard/soft nature of the material difficult to cope with, much the same as most of the gymnosperms, e.g., Scots pine.

Later, once skills start to develop learners could move on to some of the more challenging species, that also happen to be more expensive, a lot more expensive in many cases, e.g., hard or soft maple, American cherry, black walnut, oaks, ash, and so on.

Just my opinion and experience anyway. Slainte.

 

[thetyreman]

Tulip wood sounds ideal, ash is cheap though and very nice to work with, I've also been learning on redwood pine the hard way, so can relate, I think you need sharper tools with it than hardwoods, I find myself cleaning off resin regularly sometimes on the cap iron, depending on the piece of pine you are working with, but it's worth it for the amazing smell.

 

[clanger]

When I was learning at Chichester, they start with simple lap joints, mitred lap, dovetail lap all using pine. Apart from being cheap, it is also not forgiving so it makes the mistakes more obvious and so easier to explain where the student is going wrong with their technique (which includes the simple things such as not dropping the work pieces on the bench and denting the edges)
Students then generally move to the cheaper hard woods such as Tulipwood and Ash.

HTH

 

[Mr T]

I'm with Sgian Dubh, poplar/tulip (or whatever you want to call it) for exercise pieces then move on to something a little more attractive/ challenging such as oak or ash for projects. I believe a lot of the enjoyment of woodwork is from the sensation of a "sweet cut" and a beginner is more liekely to get this from poplar. Plus all the other reasons given.

Chris

 

[Steliz]

I did a 4 day course almost a year ago, as a beginner, and I made a small candle holder from redwood (after the sharpening course, obviously), and a small side table from American Black Walnut and Ash with wedged tenons that I bashed out myself. Very enjoyable and no real issues with the wood being difficult to work with or otherwise.

 

[Noho12C]

+1 for poplar.

As other said, it's pretty easy to work with and quite cheap too. Also, I quite like the look of it.

I made my tool chest with it (my first real project) and I decided not to paint it as it looks really nice.

Sent from my VKY-L09 using Tapatalk

 

[johnnyb]

Pine pine pine. All the way.unsorted redwood. Knot free. Not to resinous.

 

[Jacob]

yes pine. Highly underrated by the aspirational "fine woodwork" brigade. Lovely to work with and easier than most hardwoods, not particularly problematic except in the worst grades of course - just like any other species. Cheap, readily available, etc.

 

[johnnyb]

The only other wood that work great with handtools are air dried. Like beech ash sycamore. You'll not get them at commercial yards. And there probably dodgy in central heating. But there so much better to work. Unsteamed air dried beech is often buttery

 

[Keith 66]

In my school we use pine, With dept budget slashed 40% last year & due to be cut again this year its simply down to cost. I have had to recost every woodwork project we did & most have been canned as too expensive to make any more.
We have classes of up to 25 with most of them having a practical skill level about the same as a chimpanzee.
A significant proportion have no intention of learning any wood or metalworking skills & wont be told either.
Often you will find just two or three kids in each class who show aptitude & want to learn but the teacher is too busy controlling the idiots to give them much time.
So the technician (me) does what he can!
We do keep a small stock of decent timber, Poplar, ash , mahogany etc but it is severely limited due to being scrounged from local joinery companies or recycled, we only use this for the kids that can do it justice.

 

[Suffolkboy]

That's a real shame.

 

[Jacob]

There's as risk here that not having the "correct" wood will put people off having a go, and worse - any problems encountered will be blamed on not having the right wood.
Basically any wood will do - they all have their strengths and weaknesses - price and availability being foremost.

 

[MikeG.]

No risk there, Jacob, as I have a workshop full of pine. There are literally hundreds of pieces I could supply to learners to practice on. But for across the grain chiseling I want something that is more forgiving.

 

[Jacob]

I just had a load of carcassing softwood C16 "regularised" 2x3" in 4.2m lengths. Some pieces are completely knot free and straight grained. Even the worst has 1 to 2 m lengths between knots. Ideal for beginners! Don't know what species it is but it looks like redwood.