Using ash for furniture and casework

[Chris Barnett]

Had tried to search but poor results on three-letter words :confused:. Anyway can ash be reasonably used for furniture and casework? I had heard of breakage along the grain pattern (had never heard of this but there are other things I probably have not heard about).

Secondly, there was a suppliers' forum on SMC where lumber etc., was listed from time to time, but the forum is gone (been away sick for a long time); does the LUMBERYARD forum take its place? Without being able to see it, cannot determine if that is where the lumber sales are now (in which case a reason to join)...or if the lumber sales are only history now. Thanks,
Chris

[Chris Fournier]

Ash don't get no respect, unless we're talking about baseball bats and even then you've got maple muscling in on ash's turf.

Ash is a terrific cabinet and furniture wood. I have used plenty of it over the years and it is one of my domestic faves.

[Chip Lindley]

I give due respect to ash! It is a hard, resilient cabinet wood! It sux as firewood tho; Tons of ash; thus it's name! Flat-sawn ash has beautiful V-grain patterns. Enjoy ash now, for the emerald ash borer may render the species extinct one day soon. Ash may go the way of the chestnut tree.

[glenn bradley]

Ash works a lot like red oak. A good hardwood that behaves itself but, can be a bit fibrous depending on the source. In finishing I use non-pigmented oils or clear coats and let the nice figure show. If coloring is desired, dyes work best for me. It can be quite yellow so stay away from things with blue in them. I tried TransTint's Dark Mission Brown and it turned a dark green . . . creepy ;-) Reddish Browns worked better for me.

[Joe Angrisani]

I like Ash so much I named my dog after it! This is Ash....Colorado Ash, I suppose....

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[Chris Barnett]

Would trade a truck load of ash for that pup....my favorite dog is the golden...maybe because they always look like they're smiling....happy dog. Thanks for the info on ash. I like it, though the grain is rather profound. That is a beautiful table btw, and color is well chosen. Had not thought about the color issue so will be careful and test first.

[Buck Williams]

I love Ash. I have, I think 6 pieces that I have made from Ash, dresser, blanket chests, book cases, small cabinet, that have held up very well. I used it a lot back when the Oaks were popular, Ash was always a bit more affordable and that's what I went with. Beautiful stuff, I hope it doesn't disappear due the Emerald Ash Borer, it has a great history when you consider the baseball bats, canoe thwarts and gunwhales, snowshoes etc...

[John TenEyck]

As others have said, ash is the poor step child of red oak. It has nearly the same grain patterns as red oak but the color is generally whiter, at least northern white ash is. If you don't like the pronounced v-pattern of the flat sawn version, try it rift or quarter sawn; it's quite beautiful.

Not sure where the comment about ash not being a good firewood comes from. Ash is one of my favorite firewoods. Some people around here say you can burn ash the same day you cut the tree down. I haven't tried it, but I know that it burns very well when properly seasoned.

[Jim O'Dell]

When I went to get wood to build the kitchen cabinets at our first house, I asked for Oak. The guy at the yard said, have you thought about Ash? I said no. He said it's the poor man's Oak. I used it for that project and loved it. Jim.

edit: Forgot to say. That guy was the owner of the yard I got the wood from here in Fort Worth. Barney Robinson's Hardwood. Motto? Best Ash in Town!

[Kevin Groenke]

Ash is great.

The Chicago Furniture Designers Association (http://www.cfdainfo.org/) (CFDA) did a show called Rising From Ashes (http://www.risingfromashes.org/) to increase awareness of Ash as a viable material for quality work as welll as the general plight of Ash timberstock due to the Emerald Ash Borer. A lot of very nice work and a good representation of the range of appearances and possible finishes.

I say get ash while you can (and while it's cheap) in a couple of decades it may be as rare as American Chestnut or Honduras Rosewood.

Breakage along the grain is probably better than most other open-porous hardwoods.... think ax handles and baseball bats. Probably the highest modulus of elasticity of any "common" hardwood, so also great for things like trebuchets and archery bows. Few materials are better for steam bending or glued-bent laminations.

-kg

[John Stevens]

try it rift or quarter sawn; it's quite beautiful.

+1 on that. I dislike oak, even quartersawn, and I don't like flat-sawn ash, but I think the pattern of quarter-sawn ash is austere yet warm. I bought some 8/4 ash to use as legs on credenzas, and cut it so the quartersawn grain would be visible from the front. Unfortunately, the drawer faces were curly cherry and my finishing schedule called for the ash to be dyed black, because the patterns and colors of the cherry and ash definitely didn't go together. However, my wife and I both were left thinking that quartersawn ash would have made a nice primary wood, and we may go that route for our dining room table if we can find some. The suppliers around here don't stock ash that is intentionally quartersawn because it doesn't have a flecked grain pattern (or not usually), so I'd have to rifle through the piles to find the few pieces that ended up quartersawn.

Regards,

John

[Jim Rimmer]

You got a lot of good replies about Ash. As to why you can't see the ads of wood for sale, your profile says MEMBER. You have to be a CONTRIBUTOR to see the classifieds (I think).

[phil harold]

It sux as firewood tho; Tons of ash; thus it's name! .

I will argue with that
Green ash does not leave much ash
coals nicely
and rarely ever pops

like ash to burn, keeps my shop warm

[Dave Zellers]

Barney Robinson's Hardwood. Motto? Best Ash in Town!

I really shouldn't do this, but you opened the door...

Re: the Emerald Ash Borer, do they make ash holes?

[Jim Barstow]

I used it for the bed in the picture (19 layers in the lamination). No problems with splitting. Wonderful to work with and it's cheap relative to cherry or other common woods.
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[Chris Barnett]

Thanks for all the replies. Had thought ash was an acceptable wood, but after reading the post regarding breakage along pattern, thought there was something about it that I didn't know. I do have a good wood source for domestics and exotics, though the non-domestics are considerably higher (sorry could not work in a cute quip about the stuff like those I read above). I remember the really curly [tiger] maple that was available via this forum, what, 2 years back! Time is fleeting and things change...like the forum formats...and fees. Wonder when FCC will start charging fees for web-based forums, facebook, myspace, rapsheet (not really). Was a contributor...must have run out by now...will re-do.
Again, thanks
Chris

[Steve Ryan]

Northern white ash has the color of white pine with the grain of oak. Southern ash, or swamp ash as I call it, has a slightly amber color and the grain is a bit wilder. Almost like quartered white oak, but the "rays" seem to be visible on many cuts. Not just on quarter cut but on flat cut too. A bit interlocking with some swirls in it. A load of it was shipped to me when I specified "ash" and I was expecting northern white ash. I had to move on the project as soon as it arrived and was able to select enough from the bunk that looked like northern white. That left me with some wild looking stuff that made several nice kitchens.

[Dave MacArthur]

Chris,
The Lumberyard doesn't really have anything to do with "lumber"--I thought it was for wood sales too, but it turns out to just be a private forum for contributors to chat in about whatever, kinda off-topic mostly. $6 for contributor a year still.

[Thomas love]

Small world Jim ,

I was there a few weeks ago, had not been there for some 13 years... somethings never seem to change. My father in law has been buying from Robinsons for many years. Where else do you buy wood around here?
tom

[John TenEyck]

One more thing about ash. You can dye/stain ash to be a dead ringer for rosewood. No one but you will know.

[Stephen Pereira]

I use ash for almost all of my furniture..there are tons of ash available from local sawmills and the price is right. Straight run air dried ash goes for $.50 bd/ft while kiln dried goes for $1.00 bd/ft. I had some ash QS by a local sawyer, air dried it for two years..beautiful wood although the reversing grain lends itself to tearout.

There is no way I can afford the $4.00 bd/ft cherry, walnut or maple I see advertised.

[Chris Barnett]

Is there a email address to which donations via Paypal can be sent? Last time I sent cash in, but have no idea now to whom and would rather not have to mess with envelopes, stamps and getting to the mailbox, rather a pain (really) to do so.

[Kent A Bathurst]

You got a lot of good replies about Ash. As to why you can't see the ads of wood for sale, your profile says MEMBER. You have to be a CONTRIBUTOR to see the classifieds (I think).

True re: access to Classifieds.

But, for the Search function, a 3-letter word is too short [but the error message returned says "no matches found"]. Not sure what the minimum # characters is - sure it is explained somewhere. IIRC, has something to do with how search function works, and with a short character string like that, the # of hits would be overwhelming.

[Joe Spear]

You got a lot of good replies about Ash. As to why you can't see the ads of wood for sale, your profile says MEMBER. You have to be a CONTRIBUTOR to see the classifieds (I think).

You don't have to be a contributor to reads the ads, just to post ads.

[Rick Moyer]

You don't have to be a contributor to reads the ads, just to post ads.
But if you choose to, there is a "donate" link at the top of the page.

[Chris Barnett]

Yes, I found it; seems the only way to contribute is Paypal, if I am reading it properly. Thanks for the heads up.

[Bobby O'Neal]

The first "large" scale project I did was my daughters's bed and I used ash. Very pleased with it. Also, it occured to me that the Thomas Moser rocking chair in my living room is cherry and ash. Looks fantastic and if its good enough for Mr. Moser, its good enough for me.

[Prashun Patel]

I've made a couple things out of ash.

It is cheap.
It is very stable and accepts color without blotching.
It is also very heavy, though.
When coloring, the pores can preferentially absorb color, which will highlight the grain. Beware.
It can be prone to chipping with less than sharp knives on a jointer/planer. Beware of grain direction.
Because of the prominent grain, it can be hard to match panels.
It doesn't have that 'bad feet' odor of oak when machining.

For me, I think it's great for baseball bats, workbenches, table legs, and chair spindles - places where strength and stability matters, but looks - not so much.

[Don Bullock]

I give due respect to ash! It is a hard, resilient cabinet wood! It sux as firewood tho; Tons of ash; thus it's name! Flat-sawn ash has beautiful V-grain patterns. Enjoy ash now, for the emerald ash borer may render the species extinct one day soon. Ash may go the way of the chestnut tree.

I agree. I've built furniture with ash. It's a very dense wood and very hardy. I did have some splintering problems, but most of them were caused by me.

[Matthew Dunne]

Ash is also a very popular wood for solid body electric guitars (along with alder). It is therefore awesome.

[George Neill]

Ash is one of my favourite furniture timbers. It's extremely resilient, works well and takes an excellent polish. I have used Ash for several pieces of furniture; a cricket table (http://pegsandtails.wordpress.com/2009/09/19/an-ash-cricket-table/), a corner cabinet (http://pegsandtails.wordpress.com/2010/01/28/making-a-mulberry-corner-cabinet-part-one/) and a Windsor chair (http://pegsandtails.wordpress.com/2010/05/11/making-an-english-comb-back-windsor-chair-part-one/).

[Matt Meiser]

I've thought about it for our kitchen if we ever get around to going ahead with it. My wife wants oak, but from what I've seen staining it a shade or to darker will give the same effect at maybe $1+/bdft less.

[Matt Meiser]

At first glace I was wondering why Glenns's tables were in the same room as Jim's bed? :D


Ash works a lot like red oak. A good hardwood that behaves itself but, can be a bit fibrous depending on the source. In finishing I use non-pigmented oils or clear coats and let the nice figure show. If coloring is desired, dyes work best for me. It can be quite yellow so stay away from things with blue in them. I tried TransTint's Dark Mission Brown and it turned a dark green . . . creepy ;-) Reddish Browns worked better for me.

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I used it for the bed in the picture (19 layers in the lamination). No problems with splitting. Wonderful to work with and it's cheap relative to cherry or other common woods.
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