Last issue I asked you to tell me what your favorite hardwood might be. Great shugga-bugga, you folks really like hardwood! Nearly 250 of you sent in your selections, and what a diverse lot you are. There were 39 species identified as faves, with selections ranging from obscure (jatoba) to bland (poplar). There were, of course, the class clowns who had to raise their hands to say things like “free!” or “veneer,” but I must confess I found those answers amusing. (It takes a wise guy to appreciate a wise guy…)
So how did your selections rank the popularity of hardwoods? Well, (in order of most votes to least): walnut (in a landslide), red oak, cherry, maple and white oak. These five species accounted for 66 percent of the entries. Maple and cherry were one vote apart, while walnut edged out red oak by only seven selections. Added together, those two accounted for 35 percent of all the entries. The exotic that got the most attention was bubinga, coming in as the seventh most popular hardwood. So there you have it, the wood world according to the eZine faithful. Oh, and I promised to reveal my favorite hardwood, which now seems a bit anticlimactic, but oh well. My new favorite hardwood – fiddleback maple.
– Rob Johnstone, Woodworker’s Journal
