What woods are best for a beginner/newbie?

[Tasky]

Hi,

Silly question, gets asked all the time, but IMPOSSIBLE to search for since we don't have a Newbie section, and the words 'beginner' and 'wood' feature so very heavily on a woodworking forum... indeed, the first 70 or so search results were all about what lathe to buy!!

So yeah, since I can't find the answer using the search - What are generally regarded to be the best/easiest woods for newbie woodworkers?

 

[Ttrees]

Free hardwoods of course

 

[DTR]

I'd say Tulip. It's easy and forgiving to work with, although it's not the prettiest wood out there.

 

[mbartlett99]

I'd say beech - cheap/easy to work. Ok its not gorgeous but it cuts easily.
Not maple - quite hard, blunts tools quickly.
Walnut - easy to work but difficult to see marking lines and a bit pricey
Cherry - works very nicely but does chip if you're not careful.
Oak is cheap but again pretty hard

 

[niagra]

I'd say beech - cheap/easy to work. Ok its not gorgeous but it cuts easily.
Not maple - quite hard, blunts tools quickly.
Walnut - easy to work but difficult to see marking lines and a bit pricey
Cherry - works very nicely but does chip if you're not careful.
Oak is cheap but again pretty hard

Good summary. I like maple, it planes really nicely and predictably. Yes it is hard but as a beginner, you'll get plenty of sharpening practice!

 

[sunnybob]

Youre only asking half the question.
It should be "I want to make............. so whats the best wood to use?
I know i started this hobby backwards, but I wanted to make boxes, so my first woods were mahogany and walnut.

If i wanted to make a garden bench or a rabbit hutch, the answer would be completely different.

Strangely the maple I get here I would class it as a semi hard wood. it cuts easily, and the shavings are very fluffy and fly everywhere, whereas walnut and rosewood produce chips that fall immediately to the floor.

 

[Tasky]

I'd say beech - cheap/easy to work. Ok its not gorgeous but it cuts easily.

Yeah, that's the sort of thing I was looking for - Cheap(ish), plentiful(ish) and easy(ish) to work.
I know there was a good thread somewhere, but no hope of finding it...

 

[MikeG.]

Cheap wood is best. Free wood is better. I spent at least 10 years working just with pine before I tried some ash, and when I think of some of the awful stuff I did back then, I glad I didn't waste hardwood in my learning process. Buy pine and get good with that, then you'll be able to work with any of the other timbers which are almost all easier to work with than pine.

 

[Sideways]

I like ash. I like the lighter woods and it has an obvious grain so you have to work with that. It can also teach you how strong wood is and that with well cut joints, furniture can be delicate but still strong.
I like maple for it's toughness despite much less distinct grain. Try some for small boxes and the like.
These are both pretty easy to get hold of.
Beech is terribly bland to me and i've gone off it - we bought too much ikea stuff in beech back in the day when the kids were small and it was an improvement on the artificial finishes
No harm in using some nice (but not too costly) wood. You want even your early work to look good to encourage yourself and to learn about timbers.
The rays in oak are again such a distinctive thing, etc
If you see something you like, grab a piece and play. Even a basic knife block is more interesting if you set a piece of spalted birch into it !

 

[woodbloke66]

As Mike G has said, although pine easy enough to get hold of, it's difficult stuff to work with. Any mild working hardwood is pretty good for a beginner and my suggestion would be home grown chestnut. It looks like oak but is milder and more forgiving. Other folk have mentioned beech; good stuff, reasonably economic to buy but from my experience, it's not particularly easy to work with as it's a very close grained, fairly dense timber - Rob

 

[custard]

One rabbit holes to stay well away from is getting too giddy about timbers and ending up with lots of random boards of different species. You'll never have enough of one type to actually make anything, and the learning from working with one timber can sometimes run contrary to best practise with another timber.

For a UK woodworker I'd suggest sticking to just two or three different timbers. If you have material left over from one project it's easy to then use it up in a future project, this gives you the incentive to sensibly over buy which is a smart strategy. Sticking to just a few species also allows you to build up stocks in different thicknesses, you'll find this invaluable later on in your woodworking career.

Once you're past the Pine/Tulipwood initial learning stage, and are ready to start on real projects, then I'd suggest picking from the following, and whenever you're in a timber yard and see some more of your chosen woods offering good quality at acceptable prices then grab the chance and add some more boards to your stocks.

American Cherry. It patinates beautifully and quickly, standing up well to sunny interiors without fading. It's also ideal for the Shaker style furniture that's both popular and appropriate for beginning woodworkers. Cherry is kind to your tools, easy to glue and fasten, reasonably stable, and reasonably homogenous from one tree to another.

Oak. Not American Red Oak, but European Oak. You can't be a British woodworker without getting to grips with this national treasure. Plus it's so hard and strong that you'll always need some Oak for stuff like drawer runners which are subject to wear.

Sycamore or Maple. They're closely related species and can be used interchangeably. If you need a pale timber with a fine grain then these fit the bill. Just be careful when buying Sycamore to make sure it's clean and white (sometimes called Arctic Sycamore), it's not an expensive hardwood but if you chase a bargain you're likely to end up with horrible grey Sycamore that has ugly sticker marks.

Douglas Fir. Not the normal crepe stuff in builders yards, but the quarter sawn, knot free stuff that's fast becoming the go-to timber for environmentally conscious furniture makers. If you want to get ahead of the fashion curve this is one to explore.

Avoid dabbling with non commercial and hard to source timbers, leave stuff like Laburnum or Brown Oak or Swiss Pear well alone until you've built up a network of timber yards and have some experience under your belt.

You'll find more tips and information here,
how-to-buy-hardwoods-t107912.html

 

[Chris152]

I started learning a little over a year ago and faced with the same question went to a local (ish) woodyard (Wentwood) and bought a load of scraps of native woods for a couple of £s each, planed them and made pointless joints with them. I think it was a good way to go - excellent advice from this forum, but I think the best way is just to try some out?

 

[ED65]

In books the answer to this has long been pine (and this often meant softwood more generally rather than a pine specifically, going back to at least Hayward's day) but this advice started out when clearer stock was the norm, not the exception. If the quality of softwood were better today I think this would still be reasonable advice, but knotty pine is challenging to work with (much less get good results with) even with a bit of experience under your belt, then throw in the wide ring spacing with earlywood about the consistency of white bread and the material is a bit of a mare to work with.

So I couldn't agree more with the suggestions for a milder hardwood. I'd class beech in that category, although it's not particularly soft it's not particularly hard either; a bit bland, but being close-grained is a definite advantage to the beginner IMO so not the worst place to start. If it's available birch would be another good choice, it's noticeably softer and can be much more exciting visually. If poplar were easier to get here that would be an easy recommendation, just as it is for many in the US.

Budget obviously has to come into this though, easy to imagine the typical newcomer blanching a bit at the cost of even some of the cheaper hardwoods!

 

[John15]

+1 for American Cherry. I have several items made from it. It's easy to work and turns a beautiful reddish brown.

John

 

[thetyreman]

so far cherry has been my favourite wood to work with, but I've mostly used redwood pine for learning on, I noticed a significant difference in quality when I started buying it from an independent family run timber merchant, don't bother with B&Q or wickes e.t.c

 

[MikeG.]

Custard uses a lot more wood than me, and I have never used cherry. However, I would certainly give an honourable mention to Walnut (American Black Walnut, I think it's normally termed), which is possibly the most delightfully easy of all the hardwoods to work with. It can be beautiful, especially if used as a contrast timber.

However, as one who has stuck to the basic advice of using just 3 or 4 main timbers, I would say, oak, oak, oak, ash, oak, chestnut, oak and sycamore, in addition to tons of pine (redwood), and of course, oak. All of my stored timber falls into those categories, bar some oddments of walnut, beech, and some teak that someone gave me.

 

[sunnybob]

For me it has always been the colour that attracts. Firstly mahogany, then walnut, moving onto beech Which is a wonderful contrast when put next to walnut. Rosewood, bubinga and zebrano too.
I dont like cherry, its quite a dull brown.

Custards rippled ash and sycamore was eye opening. I can get the true exotics here, but almost no english wood. I havent actually used red or white oak yet, just not gaudy enough I suppose :shock: 8)
Which just proves there is NOT a beginners wood.

 

[custard]

I would certainly give an honourable mention to Walnut (American Black Walnut, I think it's normally termed), which is possibly the most delightfully easy of all the hardwoods to work with.

I'd second that, in fact on the piece I linked to previously on buying hardwoods I mainly illustrated it with photos of Black Walnut.

There are only two reasons why I didn't nominate ABW.

Firstly is price, it used to be just a bit more expensive than American Cherry (about £80 a cubic foot for Black Walnut versus about £60 for Cherry), but recently it's shot up to £100 or more a cubic foot, where as Cherry has stayed at around £60.

The second reason is that ABW fades in sunlight more than almost any other wood, so although wonderful in a north facing room it's not as versatile as some other contenders.

 

[johnnyb]

Unsorted redwood for most stuff. Air dried british hardwood for handtool working.
Fifths redwood par as it's easy to get started with it being planed. 9by 1 is usually knot free(ish)
Imported hardwoods are usually overly dry and hard. Here I'm thinking American white oak it would be a struggle to surface without a planer.
Sycamore is a nice timber and one I used a lot when starting. Ripple, plain, even discoloured. Then it was @£15 a cubic foot though!

 

[Tasky]

Hmm...
Well, thanks for the suggestions, everyone.
I don't really have any luck with 'free' wood, even Freecycle furniture to harvest. Pine I'm never sure of, as most of what I've had has just been CLS type timber, which could be anything as far as I know. I certainly doubt it was proper pine.
I guess Travis Perkins is also not worth much?

I'll have to go with whatever I can get at a decent price from the likes of Surrey, Tyler and DeepIn... Maybe Oxford Recycling, if I find a bargain.