How to Identify Hardwoods and Softwoods | Ask This Old House
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 29 апр 2017
- Ask This Old House general contractor Tom Silva walks host Kevin O’Connor through the types of woods available and the best uses for each.
SUBSCRIBE to This Old House: bit.ly/SubscribeThisOldHouse
Cost: Varies
Steps:
1. The terms hardwood and softwood do not refer to density but rather to the type of tree- hardwoods come from deciduous trees and softwoods from conifers.
2. Softwoods grow fast and straight so they are a good option for framing material like fir and spruce. The less knots, the stronger the wood. These woods are typically dried in a kiln to prevent warping and shrinkage.
3. Some softwoods like pine are inexpensive and can be used for interior trim, but they can warp and twist.
4. A hardwood like maple is used for cabinets whereas oak is a good choice for flooring. Both of these are more common hardwoods.
5. Fine hardwoods are denser and include species like walnut and mahogany. They’re used for balusters and decking and are more expensive than common hardwoods.
6. Exotic hardwoods like purple heart and zebra wood are the most expensive and usually used for accents on fine furniture.
About Ask This Old House TV:
Homeowners have a virtual truckload of questions for us on smaller projects, and we're ready to answer. Ask This Old House solves the steady stream of home improvement problems faced by our viewers-and we make house calls! Ask This Old House features some familiar faces from This Old House, including Kevin O'Connor, general contractor Tom Silva, plumbing and heating expert Richard Trethewey, and landscape contractor Roger Cook.
Follow This Old House and Ask This Old House:
Facebook: bit.ly/ThisOldHouseFB
Twitter: bit.ly/ThisOldHouseTwitter
bit.ly/AskTOHTwitter
Pinterest: bit.ly/ThisOldHousePinterest
Instagram: bit.ly/ThisOldHouseIG
bit.ly/AskTOHIG
Tumblr: bit.ly/ThisOldHouseTumblr
For more on This Old House and Ask This Old House, visit us at: bit.ly/ThisOldHouseWebsite
How to Identify Hardwoods and Softwoods | Ask This Old House
/ thisoldhouse 
Хобби
I can't believe I've struggle for so long trying to remember which trees are hard and which are soft, this makes its so simple lol
I wish I could just follow him around for a few years and learn everything!
Hey everybody! I found Tom's stalker!!!
Apparently I'm the only one who has been miserably let down by this video. I watched it hoping to learn how to identify hardwoods and softwoods, but all they really do is give you some information about where they come from and show you that some rare type of wood sinks. If I have a random scrap of wood in my hand and I want to determine what type of tree it came from, this video does absolutely nothing to help me figure that out. And considering the information they give about some hardwoods being soft and some softwoods being hard, this video has left me even more confused in regards to identifying the type of wood I'm holding in my hand. Which seems like a reasonable thing one might expect to be able to learn from a video labeled how to identify hardwoods and softwoods.
Best explanation about the difference between different woods I've seen on the web, well done! TRUST This Old House!
I loved taking shop in school..
Wood shop
Metal shop
Leather shop
Mechanics shop
Home economics
I learned so much from all the shopi was in. Now 30++years later, I'm still get excited when I get to build something out of metal and/or wood. To bad most schools due away with shop classes.
0:29 he was shocked when he picked up the lignum vitae however he was the one who brought it into frame at the start
the whole show is scripted. nobody is shocked about anything
Guys he thinks this is a hidden camera show with regular guys hanging out in a barn.
Good eye
@@barbwagner967 the guy is just pointing out an obvious discrepancy. You actually sound pretty miserable. Do you come online to point your fingers at people.over every little percieved fault??
@@barbwagner967 i dont think you see how circular your argument is. Youre the one who ironically pointed it out while doing the exact same thing while also being demeaning.
2:15 "It will twist and wawp ..." LOL
Sounds like something you'd hear in a YTP.
KarlBunker 8
*warp*
That's not good especially if you're making a draw. Lol
Pahk the cah in the yahd, Mahk.
Good stuff guys as always.I am 57 years old and I have watched this show forever.Back to the Bob Vila days.
Great explanation on soft and hard wood guys! Thanks for the video!
halfway through and im blown away by the amount of information in this video and the older gentlemans awesome accent. You guys just got a new sub.
"the older gentleman" lol. host Kevin, master carpenter Norm, general contractor Tommy, plumbing and HVAC Richard, electrical contractor Scott, landscape contractor Jennifer, mason Mark, builder Jeff, painter Mauro and home technology expert Ross (Richard's son).
2:17 "Twist and Wop"
Hey, that was my uncle Vinny's favorite dance!
Great help for my Product Design revision! Thanks for this great explanation of hard and softwoods. :)
Quick, easy, and beautifully explained. Thank you!!
Thank you for this clear explanation - has helped me with a school project I'm doing ^^
Wow talk about making it quick and easy to remember.
Extremely informative 👏 Great video, thank you so much!
Great video!!
VERY INFORMATIVE !!
THANK YOU !!!
Great guys great info never distrust them they been in the work for years
They should teach this to every kid in high school. I feel I was deprived.
Its sad
You didn’t get a chance to take woodshop? Wow. We had wood shop, auto shop, metal shop, home ec, driving, and several more. And they wonder why we have a nation of snowflakes lol. You’re not a real man until you’ve seen a 14 year old idiot lose his fingers to a band saw while using it to trim his fingernails which is exactly what the instructor told him NOT to do lol
You must have taken ‘special’ classes if the instructor felt the need to remind the class not do something so idiotic, only to have it still happen, don’t know why there would be a special wood shop class, seems ill advised but then again you don’t want those kids growing up to be special snowflakes
Prepperjon wow, some lessons are learned the hard way. I never had any wood, auto, or any other shop in high school, except for masonry which I took in 9th grade as an elective because there was nothing else I could take.
They used to teach at in high school back in the 40s 50s 60s and 70s
Great info. Thank you
This was very informative.
Great explanation! !!
Tommy Silva is the man!
Fantastic. Thanks for the info.
Excellent presentation!
Interesting. Here in Australia, we have some really nice Hardwoods and Softwoods. Others have to imported sadly. Cheers for the video :-)
Great info!
Very good! Thank you.
'Hardwoods come from deciduous trees' is probably true for North America, but for other places (eg Australia) hardwoods are not deciduous. A few examples, Australian Buloke (harder than Lignum vitae), Reg Gum, Tasmanian Oak. Great article though, and can't get enough of this channel.
To add to the confusion, some softwoods are deciduous-larch, baldcypress, dawnredwood et al. U S native non-deciduous hardwoods include American holly, southern magnolia, live oak et al.
Black walnut is my favorite
yup, me too!! I love the figure and the dark brown tones. My favorite project I ever did was a coffe table top that was highly figured walnut that has a nice reddish hue to it. Everyone looks at it with amazement and ask where I bought it.........hahaha
Very nice video.Thanks
A well lit close up of the grain would have been helpful.
There is a restaurant located a half hour north of boston that used zebra wood for thier bar top.....
they finished it with a high gloss urethane and it's amazing. Beautiful !!!!!!!
If I had that chance I will pay a visit to that particular place.Thanks.
Very helpful.
They make drums out of some.of those as well very popular for that... maple, birch, mahogany to name a few and mostly all but not all are made using plies just as in plywood itself. Musical percussive drum shells.
i am satisfied with this explination
Love balsa on Rapalas.
Might have missed it, but while you shared interesting facts about different types of wood, I don't think after watching this video many people can identify whether a stick of wood is a hardwood or a softwood. The title of the video
is: How to Identify Hardwoods and Softwoods.
Are you this guy's mother? All I'm suggesting is that if a title claims to do a certain thing, the video should deliver on what the title "promises". Have a good day.
I agree with you, there was no identification whats so ever, description of wood - yes, but to identify woods - no. I was going to post this initially but see you already did. and glad to see someone else on the same page as me.
Seems like you guys didn't watch the video
TheDarkToes - Yes we watched the video. You may count telling us about needles vs leaves or conifer vs deciduous as how to identify them but I do not. The title infers that we will be taught how to identify the wood. Once the trees have been turned into lumber and shipped to the local lumber yard or big box stores how do you tell which is which? That is what the title infers. So in the video at what point do they explain how to tell the difference between hardwood and softwood?
Amazing learned alot
Tom is the jack of all trades
can you also make one about different kinds of plywood, mdf, multiplex etc. and when to use what?
Still the best home show around
thenks
purple heart flooring is amazing
There are THOUSANDS of hardwoods that don't drop their leaves. Balsa only loses its leaves in dry spells, not annually for winter. Almost all Australian hardwoods are not deciduous. The difference is whether they are conifers or not.
correct!
Yup it's wood!
Hello people from loreto I’m assuming you’ve been sent here from your teacher Lol
Nobody knows his wood like Tom Silva
Arie M Except for Norm
Yup...Norm and Tom can erect anything.
That's not even slightly true.
Might know about softwoods, but completely wrong on all hardwoods being deciduous! WRONG!
Except for Mrs Silva lol She knows his wood lol
good vid tq.
density is a string indicater , the pines that are hard are hard dense strait grained few knots , if you look up r value and heat value , good woods score high , also water content , it warps and twists as it drys
I use one for my projects cause I'm a kid and can't afford nice wood but I like the knot look I make furniture and cool projects out of them in my shop and random house needs
Hardest wood, morning wood
as you get older it turns to a soft wood, but they make a pill for that
Lol
sgvpotter mine must be made from rubber wood 😢
I use cypress siding wood for several projects and has beautiful grain Cypress is as hard as Oak even though it is considered a softwood
Hi, I want to make a timber box to cook my cakes in, in the oven. What type of timber would be the best to use please? I will be lining the box with baking paper, not putting the cake mixture straight into the box. PS, I am in Australia so it has to be something I can get easily. Thanks.
I believe the difference is actually with respect to the seeds, rather than the leaves.
Sir from mahogany and cedar. Which one is best for outer main door.
Angiosperm, "enclosed seed", which include fruits and nut, yield hardwoods, while gymnosperm, "naked seed", mostly conifers, yield softwoods.
The terms have absolute nothing to do with the relative hardness or workability of the wood.
Balsa is a hardwood, and yew is a softwood. Go figure!
Very interesting - thanks!
That's what I learned, as well. It's the seeds that determine which it is. The needle thing is close, but not totally accurate. I believe that myrtle is a soft wood, for instance.
Will Morrison Myrtle is considered a hardwood. It grows mainly in Southwestern Oregon and the Holy Land. It’s a relative of the Laurel and Bay trees. Go to myrtlewoodgallery.com for a wealth of information. And yes I live in southwest Oregon lol
Cheers mates and happy trails
Poplar????? Answer carefully. Not what you think!
Not sure Yew is a softwood. If you look at it's needles, they are actually tiny leaves. Also, seed is in a fruit rather than naked. :-). Just saying ;-)
Saw this
It's crazy how lignum vitae is super heavy and could actually sink.
No mention of Sapele, Acoya, Idigibo or Green Heart woods. All these are hard woods as well.
What about a nice Spanish Cedar? Its a softwood but still very quality and could make very nice furniture
fine but you didn't mention old houses at all
I have a piece of wood that I have been working on with hand tools it is very hard. And it is tan colored with a very distinctive tightly woven burlap fabric look. I haven't any ideas as to what it is, as I purchased it online from a Chinese store with no description in Chinese or otherwise. Any ideas?
My study is all dark walnut
I have a house in southern Missouri which was built in 1923, I'm trying to find out what kind of wood is on top of the concrete foundation, it's 4x6s, single layer in most places but double layered up front of house, is a very red, dark red wood, and when I put vents under house each vent spot burned through 3-4 sawzall blades each, but had to get done - termites had field day before those vents.
Any ideas how to tell if red oak, or redwood??
Wow I have never even seen that purple wood
Oswaldo Rabanal can be found in Guyana in the Caribbean
Here is the most extraordinary example of Purpleheart you may ever see: ruclips.net/video/GKm460QWupM/видео.htmlm32s
Why didn't he cut the 2 woods the same size to put in the water for his float experiment? Is the lignum wood harder to cut a flat small sample from?
When did you build Pinocchio
2:18
"It will twist and wah-p and everything else..."
No u forgot hedge aka Osage orange aka bois darc it’s one of the best all round woods
God sure gave us a lot of choices for sure.
I love how he just puts a small shim-like piece of the balsa, then throws in a sizeable chunk of lignum vitae and is like "wow! I wonder why it didn't float!" Lol
Reverse the sizes and you get the same results. It's a matter of density (weight divided by volume) and not just volume. You cannot make a piece of lignumvitae small enough to float without the help of surface tension or a piece of balsa large enough to sink.
What do the pro’s recommend for building outdoor furniture, that will withstand many years of weather. With or without paint.
Thank you
Not one scrap about how to tell them apart, though, or even why they're used for different purposes. For example, why frame with a softwood? What's it good for?
......learning a bit more about the other timbers was good but I won't accept the definition given. If a timber is easy to nail and cut then it's a softwood and if it bends nails hammered into it ,then I call it a hardwood and also the chainsaw blade requires more frequent sharpening. The hardest timber on the planet is the Australian iron gum ( ironbark ) and it's very dangerous to hit it with an axe.
Good timing! I just finished setting up a workshop at home and i will be looking to build a computer desk and a dining table this summer and i am learning more about wood as i begin to look for lumber to build my stuff this summer! Sweet!
Can i use Spruce as stepping wood in the garden?
If you buy treated lumber on the east coast it's usually pine. But
It'll twist and wop.
the prices you dipped in the water were not the same size?.
I have wooding shingles for siding on my house. Does anyone have a good suggestion for identifying what kind of wood they are made of?
Neil Cole most wood shingles are made of cedar. Its usually called cedar shake
So bigger long trees=more logs and longer boards
What does Tom say at 4:29?
question is it ok to burn pine wood in the fireplace or wood stove
Tim Bolt yes I do it every winter. As do most people in this part of the country
as long as it's not treated. you don't want chemicals in the air you breath
where would cypress wood fall into this?
i have family from Lousiana who always talk about how great it is because it can hold up so well in wet climates.
dan langston Cypress is a softwood.
Botanically it's a softwood, but the lumber industry treats it as a hardwood. Just another example that hard and fast rules don't always fit.
That 2x4 was not fir, it was pine! Fir, although it has some white wood, is mostly reddish toned. They don't usually make 2x4s out of fir. Because it has more structural strength, they tend to reserve fir for 2x8s and up-joist and rafters, etc. But perhaps he was just mentioning fir while showing the pine 2x4 for construction, though he didn't mention that.
Pika Rose are you certain of that? Here in the Pacific Northwest we use Douglas Fir for everything including 2x4’s. We even use it for 2x2’s and 1x4’s
Several true firs-noble, grand, red and others are commonly used for framing lumber. These trees are in the genus Abies and have generally light tan wood. They are the F when a mill mark reads SPF. Douglas-fir, genus Psuedotsuga ("false hemlock") is not a true fir. Its wood can be tan to pink to a rather deep red. You will see DF in the mill mark.
Might want to mention how toxic dusts of these woods can be!
No joke...I went into a woodcraft knowing NOTHING about that...picked what looked best to me to play with...
I picked Cocobolo...I was amazed at how “sweet” it smelt and how the dust looked like glitter in the sunlight.
That night : super sore throat,head ache and even my very first nose bleed! 😵
Please know what your messing with when it comes to all that exotic stuff!
......Tasmanian huon pine shavings should not be used as bedding for hens and cypress is also toxic. The hens get poisoned and die.
👍🏻
Where can I find a plan for making a home made bar or what is the rule for spacing in a frame
Kevin C Bars are usually 40-42 inches tall. You can have a lower work area in the back at countertop height (36") though.
Width and depth is pretty relative to were you're going to put it.
12" raised and 12" work surface should be plenty on width though.
Broken Wave
Thanks
whats the best wood to burn in a fireplace in doors
Tim Bolt I liked burning ash. Pretty slow burning and puts out the heat. I worked for a hardwood sawmill for years and was allowed to take the butt ends of logs when they got bucked. I always jumped at the chance for ash.
why are the two wood sample dropped in the water different shapes and sizes?
Samantha Monaghan ....the two pieces used may have been scrap pieces they had around, but the demonstration shows the density of the two different woods. The fact that one was bigger has nothing to do with it sinking. For example, even a small rock will sink because of the density of the rock itself. It has a greater gravitational pull downward than the water pressure pushing up beneath it.
Ligna Vitae is used in railroad ties?
Apparently it was used in the
Panama Canal Railway (back in the 1850's) but not so much anymore seeing how it's been harvested to a near threatened status and concrete ties are being phased in to replace wood ones most places anyway.
question what is the best Wood to make a walking cane also to be used in self defence?
WingedBull1 I would say ash wood would be the best.
WingedBull1 I made one out of Dogwood. It will not break!
This is probably late, But Hickory is used for axe handles and other tool handles like hammers and holds up for years and years. It's also mid-grade priced and I'd imagine can be bought at just about any hardwood dealer.
WingedBull1 blackthorn Irish fighting stick .
WingedBull1 one that has a sword in it. Aka sword cane
Cedro is king
Twist and. waaaaap !!!
You never want your boards to wop.
sono completamente compiaciuto dal esperienza del signore
anche se mi sembra ambiguo un botto
Watchedthe whole video and still don't know how to tell the difference between softwood and hardwood
Yew is pretty darn hard, but called a softwood.
Wow, Tommy's wicked smaht!
honestly like they're almost arguing