Identify How ANY Species Will Work
This episode is essentially the condensed audio version of the 2 hour class I taught at Woodworking in American in 2016. I've included the video of that class below if you want to delve deeper into actual species examples thrown at me from the audience.
But the important part about this episode to remember is that noting the technical properties of the species of lumber that you already know will tell you volumes about how another species will work. Understanding what each number means and how they relate to each other gives you the perfect snapshot of that species even if you have never touched it.
Please let me know if you have questions from this episode and if you have specific species in mind I'm happy to show you how this idea can be applied. Send me an email via the contact form or a voicemail and I'll showcase it on the show.
Stuff I mentioned in the show
For an even more in depth look at wood technical properties you can view or download the Forest Products Laboratory Wood Handbook and really geek out.
Dear Shannon, I love your show.
Just a small correction that I’d like to preface by pointing out that I’m a mechanical engineer and absolutely anal about units of measurement.
Psi(pounds per square inch) is a unit of pressure, stress or strength; not force. Therefore, since Janka hardness is a measure of the force required to press that ball into the wood, its units should be pounds of force (lbf, or Newtons in metric).
No judgement from me – I’m pretty sure normal well-adjusted humans don’t really care about these things 🙂
Please keep doing wheat you’re doing!
no well adjusted humans listen to this podcast so you are in good company.
You mentioned hard Maple being close to 3x as hard on Janka compare to cherry. But HM is only 1450
I must have misspoke or had been sniffing wood dust. You’re absolutely correct. Cherry’s Janka rating is 850.