White Pine too soft for tabletop?

[Keith Downing]

I've got a bunch of rough cut white pine I got cheap a long time ago. Been waiting for an opportunity to use it for a project, but it's so damn soft I keep avoiding it. Now I'm looking to build a butcher block STYLE table top for a medium sized desk. So my question is: Is this wood still too soft?

I'm worried about every little ding and scratch pretty quickly making the surface unusable for writing. Possibly even just looking bad in general.

Would using an epoxy type finish help with this? Could it possibly work regardless?

Advice would be greatly appreciated!

[Andrew Hughes]

I built a white pine table for a customer last year.In the style of the current trend.It didn't seem that's soft to me but the wood was mostly quartered and rift.I think that helps.I also do like a table that shows it wear.
want see it hear ya go.

[Keith Downing]

I built a white pine table for a customer last year.In the style of the current trend.It didn't seem that's soft to me but the wood was mostly quartered and rift.I think that helps.I also do like a table that shows it wear.
want see it hear ya go.

That doesn't look bad at all! What finish did you use? Has it held up well?

[Bill Adamsen]

I have never tried to use it "butcher block style" which to me means end grain. Interesting idea.

White pine has some nice attributes, low radial and tangential shrinkage, easy to work with hand tools. The shrinkage makes it very suitable for certain secondary wood such as the bottoms of traditional drawers. It was used extensively in New England for virtually everything ... windows, cabinets, furniture. There is a book you might find in your library called "The Pine Furniture of Early New England" by Russell Kettell with hundreds of photographs and measured drawings. I affectionately remember building one of the items as the first project in middle school shop class back in 1965. My father built many items from that book. I have large quantities of Eastern White Pine on hand and use it for projects frequently. It takes oil and painted finishes beautifully.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

I expect that if you slap a piece of paper on top and write with a pen, then you will leave a mark. This might happen with any wood, of course. For a wood surface, I was told to always put something down rather than writing directly on the wood surface. Some people use glass coverings on the top. I have no experience with this thick bar top coatings, but it might work.

We had a soft table, and for sure it had scratches from exactly this sort of thing.