Hardwood

Quartersawn or flatsawn?

Understand the differences in appearance, behavior and price

Relative humidity, temperature and wood

Make quality products that won't shrink, swell or warp

Species surface hardness

Understanding wood density can be a factor in substitution choices.

Test your gluing knowledge

Just how glue savvy are you?

Opportunities for minor eastern hardwoods

Sycamore and wormy maple ranked highest in customer rankings of underutilized species.

Cupping in lumber

Q: We are getting a lot of cupping in some of our lumber. What is causing this and what can we do to fix it?

Determining true mahogany

Q: How can I separate true mahogany (Honduras) from the others?

Fungal stains

Q: We received some red oak lumber and a few pieces are blue in the sapwood. Is this mold fungal stain?

Incipient decay

Q: When grading hardwood lumber, can incipient decay be included or not?

Interior gray stain

Q: I heard you talk about the possibility of sap soft maple with a gray-stained center surrounded by normal white color after KD. The lumber grader cannot see the gray so does not reject the lumber. We have recently experienced this phenomenon for the first time. In your opinion, is it due to sick logs or bad kiln procedure?