Wood Review
Welcome to my wood review! On this page, I will be ranking types of wood that I've worked with in my woodshop classes. I'm not in it anymore, but at least I can reminisce about it and fantasize about buying my own power tools to hopefully make things again. This page has no CSS because I thought it would be funnier if it was naked. Images from wikimedia commons.Pine
I've worked with pine the most out of all of these materials. Pine is a conifer, so this type of wood is quite soft. That makes it easy to work with and also quite cheap, but equally as easy to accidentally bump into a corner and get an unsightly dent in a workpiece, which is less fun. The color is usually a warm cream which looks nice with all sorts of other materials. The everywood, if you will. I give it a 7/10 for being easy to work with and expendable.
Maple
I don't use maple as often as I do pine. It's a hardwood so it's less susceptible to dents by bumping into things. However, it for some reason hates being planed and I've never been able to finish a piece of this wood without getting chipout. Aside from that, it has a very nice color. It's very light but not too warm. The wood also has a very nice chatoyancy on some occasions, like in the included image. I give it a 5/10 for looking pretty but being a pain in the butt to make look pretty.
Walnut
I enjoy working with black walnut. It makes a great accent wood because of its tone and since it's a hardwood you don't have to worry about scratches. It's more expensive than softwood, so use it carefully. I've found that walnut doesn't take to pyrography as well as other woods to and it takes more time to put designs in it. That's no biggie if you don't care about woodburning, though. Otherwise, it's just a solid wood. I give it an 8/10 for being the least cumbersome of the hardwoods I've used and also looking pretty.
Cherry
I like cherry, a lot. It has a very nice medium-toned color that has a bit of warmth to it. Things to keep in mind is that the wood burns quite easily when it's cut, so you'll need to sand it a bit. That does make it easy to pyrograph, though. Every single time I've had a piece of wood grab onto the blade and jump up at me (which is only twice, but still) it's been a piece of cherry, so I'm slightly suspicious of it. I give it a 6/10 for looking pretty but having scared me out of my socks in the shop several times.
Purpleheart
An honorable mention. A hardwood, and it's purple. I never got a chance to use this stuff because it was always in short supply and it was used up by other folks as soon as they could find it. But man, wouldn't it be cool? It's purple!