List of Hardwoods for Building a Pirate Ship Playhouse Part 4
CEDAR HARDWOOD
Although cedar (cedrus) is actually a softwood, the name cedar is often applied to hardwoods that have a similar scent. One such commonly used hardwood with this characteristic is cigar-box cedar or cediela odoiata (also known as "cedro"). The timber of hardwood cedar is the color of mahogany, but has a coarser texture, is lighter weight, and is more resinous. It dries readily and is very stable in use. Though it has good strength for its weight, it could not be considered a strong wood.
Very durable and decay resistant, hardwood cedar is used in Central and South America (where it grows) for general construction and furniture. It works easily and well; its uses are limited mostly by its small supply. A traditional wood for cigar boxes, hardwood cedar is also often used in the building of racing boats. Of course it is also well suited for constructing a wooden pirate ship playhouse for your kids.
CHERRY HARDWOOD
Cherry, both European and American black, is a fine-textured wood with generally straight grain. It is pale pinkish brown when first cut, but the color darkens to deep red with a characteristic golden sheen sometimes touched with green. Often marked with thin dark-brown bands, streaks, or flecks, it is a particularly lovely and warm wood with a natural glow. When freshly worked cherry has a sweet, rose-like scent.
European cherry tends to be marginally heavier than American black cherry, but both are considered to be moderately heavy, strong, and stiff with good shock resistance. Cherry will sometimes distort on drying, but is stable in use. It works well, saws easily, and takes an excellent finish by hand or machine. It is very seldom used outdoors. Cherry is a well-known wood for furniture and decorative veneers.
CHESTNUT HARDWOOD
The large chestnut tree, common in Europe, is known for its fruit and is sometimes recognizable by its spirally fissured bark. Nearly all standing chestnut trees in the United States today are dead, killed by blight. But, because of the durability of the wood, these trees remain a good source of timber.
Chestnut wood is pale brown to greyish and darkens on exposure. It has prominent growth rings like oak, but lacks the silver grain feature of oak. The wood has a coarse texture with growth rings marked by rows of large pores. Relatively light, and low in strength and resistance to shock, chestnut is moderately hard and dries slowly. It is stable in use, however, and is easy to work with hand or machine tools.
Chestnut is naturally durable especially the heartwood, thus it is ideal to be used for building a pirate ship playhouse that can hold up until your child grows up and leaves home for college—probably even longer than that! Its chemical nature, which resists fungi and rot, is such that it may even corrode iron in damp conditions. The wood is often used for fencing and other exterior purposes where great strength is not required. It is rarely used in furniture, but paneling is sometimes made from chestnut veneer.
COCOBOLO HARDWOOD
Cocobolo is one of the Central American rosewoods, but its coloration is distinctive enough to give it a singular reputation. When first cut, the wood has almost a rainbow appearance. On exposure the color mellows to a deep orange-red with darker stripes or mottles. It has medium texture and the grain can be straight or irregular. The wood is heavy and very stable once dry.
Cocobolo is not particularly difficult to work considering its weight and hardness. It is an excellent turning wood and though making it difficult to glue successfully, its natural oil contributes to a beautiful finish. It is used for a variety of decorative purposes.
A particularly important usage is in knife handles; the natural oils allow for repeated washings without deterioration. Special care should be taken when working with cocobolo to build a children’s playhouse, as its dust can be very irritating and can stain the skin.
EBONY HARDWOOD
Though ebony is quite a rare wood, it is familiar because of its traditional use in piano keys. The intense black-colored type is the most well-known, but species vary from the warm black to medium or dark brown Macassar ebony (which has black stripes), to the grey-brown mottled wood of coromandel, and to the very pale white ebonies, such as persimmon.
Ebony has a fine, even texture and is extremely heavy. It must be handled with care and skill in both seasoning and working. It tends to be brittle and is very hard. Ebony can be machined to an excellent finish and has its own natural luster. It is popular for small turned items and has been used as a precious wood for centuries, as indicated by its presence in ancient Egyptian tombs.
HOLLY HARDWOOD
The glossy, spiked leaves and red berries of the holly have made it most familiar to us as a Christmas decoration. Though not in great commercial demand, the wood is sometimes available in small pieces. Holly wood is white to grey-white in color and quite plain in appearance. It has a fine, even texture and often irregular grain.
Heavy and hard, it is best dried in small pieces to prevent distortion and holly is not very stable in damp environments. Though quite difficult to work, holly can be machined to a smooth surface and stains very well. It is generally seen in small turned items and is used for engraving. Holly is often dyed black and used as a substitute for ebony.
LIME HARDWOOD
Lime wood is also known as "basswood” and "linden” and is a pale yellow, almost white, wood. There is no distinction between heart and sapwood and both darken to light brown on exposure. It is a straight-grained timber with a fine, uniform texture, is featureless, and has no odor or taste. Light in weight and rather soft, lime wood has a natural luster.
Lime dries quickly and well with some distortion and high shrinkage. It has good stability, but no resistance to decay. Though not a strong wood, it has good working properties, including turning and bending. It is soft enough to be carved with ease, but firm enough for detailed work, and it takes stain readily. The works of Grinling Gibbons and other master wood-carvers attest to the fact that lime is a favored wood for carving. It is also used for piano parts and small turned items.
MAPLE HARDWOOD
There are a number of species of maple and they are generally classified into two groups, hard and soft. Sugar and black maples are known as hard and are correspondingly heavier and somewhat stronger than soft maples, such as silver, red, and box elder. The best known of the maples is the sugar maple, famous for its sweet sap, which is converted into syrup. All maples are known and loved for their brilliantly colored autumn leaves.
Maple woods are all similar in their pale red-brown color. The heartwood tends to be a bit darker and is heavy, strong, stiff, and hard. The soft maples are about twenty-five percent lighter in weight than the hard. Shock resistance is good, but none are durable in weathering conditions.
Maple is usually straight grained, but sugar maples occasionally produce "bird's-eye" figures, where the starting points of new side branches appear as small brown spots with dark centers looking rather like eyes. These contrast with the pale background of the wood, creating a distinctly lovely pattern. When these logs are discovered, they are almost always rotary peeled for veneer, the only process by which the grain is fully displayed.
Maple dries fairly well, but with high shrinkage. When seasoned, it is very stable and has fine working properties. It is a favorite of carvers and turners, works to a smooth finish, and wears slowly. Maple is used extensively for furniture, flooring, veneer, shoemakers' lasts, and a variety of wooden ware.
OAK (RED)
Red oak is distinguished from white oak by the color of its heartwood which is more pinkish. It is used less for commercial purposes and is generally considered inferior to white oak. The coarse texture is similar and red oaks have the same silver grain figure on quarter-cut surfaces, but the rays are shorter and the figure not so well marked.
Red oak is less durable than white and must be treated for outdoor use. It is a very dense wood, is difficult to dry, and is also more difficult to work than white oak. Suitable for interior work, red oak has many of the same uses as white oak, though the latter is usually preferred.
OAK (WHITE)
White oak includes several species of European, Japanese, and American trees with similar timber. The sapwood of white oak is nearly white and the heartwood is pale yellowish brown, sometimes greyish. White oak is typically coarse textured and ring porous in nature, the pores being filled with tiny hairlike structures that make the wood quite waterproof.
The grain of oak is usually straight with obvious growth rings and rays. When quarter sawn (cut from the center to the outside edge), oak has a distinctive "silver grain" figure. This silver grain reveals the rays as broad bands that are harder and smoother than the surrounding wood and that reflect light quite noticeably, giving it a silvery sheen. Wood used in furniture is often quarter sawn to take advantage of this unique property.
White oak is moderately heavy, dense, strong, and tough. It is relatively difficult to work owing to its weight and density. It is naturally durable due to the tannins (chemical compounds which are natural preservatives) in the wood, which give it the odor of tannic acid when worked. The tannins will react with iron causing "ink stains," so wooden pegs are often used to join oak, which is, in any case, difficult to nail.
Oak is a favorite furniture wood and is used for flooring, construction, and for whiskey and sherry casks. It is a preferred wood wherever strength, durability, and appearance count. I strongly recommend you use white oak to build a pirate ship playhouse that is not only highly durable, but eye-catching as well.
Continue to part 5