The range of timber available is endless. When trying to decide on the correct type of timber for your product/project try and think through what colour of finish you require.
It would be easy to get this wrong, for example, most people think of Mahogany as being dark in colour but generally this is not the case. It is darker than say American White Oak or Southern Yellow Pine but it is not what I would call "Dark".
Nowadays the most popular timber is American White Oak, an example is shown here in one of our most popular doors known as a "Louis". It is easy to understand why; the colour is light, the grain is superb and after decoration it is absolutely stunning.
I personally prefer to use this timber for internal door purposes and stick to the Mahogany for External doors. Customers normally disagree as they prefer the traditional appeal of Oak, the hardness of the timber etc.
We tend to use the likes of "Southern Yellow Pine" (SYP) for renovation work where the more expensive "Douglas Fir" was traditionally used. It really is a good value alternative; it has beautiful grain, is not prone to twisting and can be matched with a good quality ply or Mdf panel which has (SYP) veneers.
We try and avoid using Redwood (pine) when making doors as in my opinion it is not stable enough and can have issues during decoration with "knots" and splits. we do however use it daily for door frames, skirtings, mouldings and architraves as they are fixed in-situ.
There are numerous other types of both hardwoods and softwoods and it is my intention to focus on some pros and cons with regard to timber. I will also be looking at timber and its historical uses. These issues are likely to be spread over several blogs and I hope you find them interesting.
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