American hardwoods provide a large number of woods of different colors, textures, and properties for specification makers, manufacturers, and end-users all over the world. Among them are walnut, red birch, elm, cherry, and red with darker warm colors. Oak, there are also lighter white oak, maple, and ash.
The ten most commonly used North American kinds of wood will be introduced below. They are mostly used in furniture manufacturing and interior decoration.
Red Oak
Red oak is widely distributed in the eastern part of the United States. The wood is hard and heavy, with good machining performance and slow drying. The color, texture, characteristics, and properties of red oak will vary with the place of origin.
Due to climatic reasons, southern red oak grows faster than northern red oak, and the wood is harder and heavier. It is usually sold in the southern and northern regions according to the production area. The southern wood is reddish in color and has a color difference. It is suitable for darker coating products; The color of northern wood is light red, white, and uniform in color. It is suitable for light-colored products, and the price difference between north and south is large.
The mountain red oak is between the north and south red oaks. The reason is that the topography of the Appalachian Mountains in the eastern United States affects the climate, resulting in a special production area.
Building materials, furniture, flooring, interior architectural design, interior joinery and lace, doors, kitchen cabinets, paneling, coffins, and buckets. Not suitable for use as a close-fitting material. The color, texture, characteristics, and properties of red oak will vary with the place of origin. Therefore, it is recommended that users and orderers work closely with suppliers to ensure that the wood ordered is suitable for their specific needs.
Black Walnut
Black walnut is found in various parts of the eastern United States, but the main commercial forest areas are located in the central states. It is one of the few artificially planted and naturally regenerated tree species in the United States.
The white wood of walnut is creamy white, and the heartwood is light brown to brownish-black, with occasional purple cracks and darker stripes. The walnut wood supplied can be sold after steam treatment to discolor the white wood, or it can be sold without steam treatment. Walnut wood is usually straight wood grain, but also corrugated or curved wood grain, which produces attractive and decorative graphics.
Furniture, cabinet manufacturing, interior building structure, high-end joinery, doors, flooring and paneling. It is a good wood that is used in conjunction with light-colored wood to create a contrast effect.
White Oak
The appearance of North American white oak is similar to Chinese oak and European white oak. It is produced in large quantities in the eastern part of the United States. Its sapwood is light-colored, the heartwood is light brown to dark brown, and the texture is rough, most of which are straight. The pith ray is more red than red. The oak is longer, so it has more wood grain than the red oak. The wood is hard and heavy and has good mechanical processing performance, dyeing and polishing performance.
Because its wood grain and pith rays are extremely beautiful, white oak is more suitable for varnish treatment than red oak. The heartwood of wood oak is highly resistant to corrosion and disease and insects, so it is rare to see white oak material decay and wormholes.
Building materials, furniture, flooring, interior architectural design, outdoor joinery, molded products, doors, kitchen cabinets, paneling, sleepers, wooden bridges, wooden bars for wine barrels, coffins, and buckets.
White Ash
The appearance of North American ash is similar to European ash, the white wood part is light in color, close to white. The color of the heartwood varies from brown-gray to light brown to light yellow with brown wood grain. This kind of wood is usually straight with a rough, uniform grain. The chromaticity and supply of light-colored white wood vary with the place of production.
The color of white wax in the north is more uniform. The color difference between sapwood and heartwood is smaller than that in the south. The sapwood part is creamy white and the heartwood part is grayish brown. The color difference between the sapwood and heartwood in the south is large, and the sapwood part is pure white and heartwood part. It is dark brown.
Furniture, flooring, architectural interior decoration, high-grade joinery, and molded products, kitchen cabinets, paneling, tool handles sporting goods, and car products.
Cherry
Cherries are found in various parts of the eastern United States, and the main commercial forests are distributed in Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, and New York. The color of the heartwood ranges from brilliant red to brownish red, and the color becomes darker after sun exposure. On the contrary, its white wood is milky white.
Cherry wood has fine and uniform straight lines, smooth texture, and naturally contains brown core spots and small gum pockets. Cherries are characterized by heartwood, and their price has a lot to do with the heartwood ratio. There are color selection and non-color selection. The higher the color selection ratio, the higher the price.
Furniture and cabinet manufacturing, high-end joinery, kitchen cabinets, molded products, paneling, flooring, doors, ship interior decoration, musical instruments, car products, and sculptures.
Soft Maple
Soft maple is mainly distributed in various regions of the eastern United States, with a small number on the west coast (big leaf maple). Its growth environment is similar to hard maple. Most of the properties are very similar to hard maple and can be used to replace hard maple.
Although soft maple is widely distributed, the color of its wood varies greatly with different producing areas. Generally speaking, the white wood of soft maple is off-white, sometimes with darker pith spots. The color of its heartwood ranges from light brownish red to dark brownish red. This wood is usually straight wood grain.
Soft maple is divided into red leaf soft maple and silver leaf soft maple. Among them, red leaf soft maple is whiter with a smaller color difference and is more popular in the Chinese market. Soft maple is generally sold without color sorting
Furniture, paneling, interior joinery, kitchen cabinets, molded products, doors, musical instruments, and turned products. Soft maple is often used as a substitute for hard maple, or dyed to imitate other woods (such as cherry). Its physical properties and processing properties also make it a substitute for beech wood.
Hard Maple
Hard maple is mainly distributed in the eastern United States. It is a hardy tree and prefers a more northern climate. The hardness of hard maple is about 25% stronger than soft maple. The white wood is milky white with brownish-red tones. The heartwood is light brown red to dark brown-red. The amount of dark brown-red heartwood obviously varies with the growing area. Both white wood and heartwood may contain pith spots.
This kind of wood has dense and fine grain, usually straight wood grain, but there are also curved, arched, and bird-eye wood grains.
Floors, furniture, paneling, kitchen cabinets, countertops, tabletops, interior joinery, stairs, bars, moldings, and doors.
Walnut American Hickory
Walnut is an important tree species in eastern hardwood forests. In terms of botany, walnut trees are divided into two categories: true walnut trees and hickory walnut trees (which can bear fruit). The wood of the two types of trees is essentially the same and is usually sold together.
The sapwood of walnut is white with brown tones, and its heartwood is light white to brownish red. Both sapwood and heartwood have rough grains, and the wood grain is usually straight, but fluctuating or irregular. The density and strength of walnut wood vary with its growth rate, and the value of real walnut wood is usually higher than that of hickory wood. Walnut wood is known for its excellent strength and shock resistance, and has excellent steam bending resistance.
Yellow Poplar
Liriodendron is widely distributed in various parts of the eastern United States. The white wood is milky white with streaks. The heartwood is light yellowish brown to olive green. The inherent characteristic is more heartwood. The green of the heartwood will darken and turn brown when exposed to light. Liriodendron tulipifera has a medium grain density and a straight grain. The size of the white wood layer of Liriodendron tulipifera and some of its physical properties will vary with the place of production.
This wood has many desirable characteristics and is suitable for a variety of important uses. The shape of Liriodendron is like European poplar (European poplar), so it is also called (American) boxwood.
Alder
Alder is distributed on the west coast of the United States and the Pacific Northwest. When Alder was just cut down, it was almost white, and quickly turned into light brown after being exposed to air, with a yellow or light red hue. Older trees are formed with heartwood, and there is no obvious boundary between sapwood and heartwood. The wood is quite straight and has a uniform texture.
Alder is inherently characterized by more heartwood, a similar texture to cherries, lower price, and can be used as a substitute for cherries.