What wood would you use?

[Jim Koepke]

The availability of various woods changes from region to region.

One way to solve your quandary could be to visit lumber yards in your area and ask which woods have the qualities you are seeking.

Online searches for > weather resistant wood < will offer some answers like this:

https://www.woodmagazine.com/materia...outdoor-lumber

Not all of those featured will be available, at least inexpensively, in all areas.

jtk

[Doug Dawson]

I would not use western red cedar; it is weak and splintery and a person who grabs the trellis to keep their balance could break it. Using rift sawn or quarter sawn would not make a difference in this application. You still would have bowing issues.

Agreed. WRC is rather brittle, and a plant growing on a trellis made of it could easily pull it to pieces (unless its one of those namby pamby plants like a clematis or something.) Or an errant child.

Somebody else suggested teak, but that's an oily wood that requires IMO some advanced prep to get paint to stick to it properly.

White oak sounds like a nice choice, bowing wouldn't matter too much, after all it is fixed in a lattice.

[lowell holmes]

I have had good luck with cypress.

https://www.woodmagazine.com/materia...outdoor-lumber

[Jim Matthews]

If not Cypress or Cedar, a PVC product like Azek has remarkable working properties, and can be joined with PVC pipe cement. It can be readily shaped with hand planes and saws.

It's impervious to foul weather and remains gleaming White in open, sunny conditions.

It has ZERO structural strength.

[Brian Holcombe]

Honduran Mahogany would be my first choice.

[James Waldron]

Honduran Mahogany would be my first choice.

But only with a paying customer!

[Dave Anderson NH]

I'm with Brian on the mahogany. A NH millwork outfit I know specializes in restoration work like windows and doors for places like the Boston Public Library, Harvard, the Museum of Fine Arts, etc. They use only pattern grade mahogany for its stability, longevity, and paintability.

[brian zawatsky]

Thanks for weighing in guys. Ipe and teak are out of the question; ipe is a pain to work with and teak's oily-ness make it difficult to both glue and finish. Redwood and cedar are both out because I really think they're both too soft and the durability of presently available stock is suspect IMO. Will probably go with mahogany if its not astronomically expensive.

[andy bessette]

I have had good luck with cypress...

This is a good choice for outdoors.

[Jamie Buxton]

You're building this Neaderthal-style? That is, you're cutting all those joints by hand? If so, I'd go with a softwood -- WRC, or the like. Hardwood like white oak would be stronger, but I'd be cutting the joints with a dado head on a table saw.

[Mel Fulks]

Heart cypress is great, but expensive. Most that's available here is not heart .

[Doug Dawson]

Thanks for weighing in guys. Ipe and teak are out of the question; ipe is a pain to work with and teak's oily-ness make it difficult to both glue and finish. Redwood and cedar are both out because I really think they're both too soft and the durability of presently available stock is suspect IMO. Will probably go with mahogany if its not astronomically expensive.

Here's a good discussion of the varieties of mahogany:

https://www.woodworkerssource.com/bl...ions/mahogany/

They include prices, relative to each species of mahogany and which are probably _proportional_ to what you'd pay locally in various areas of the US.

[Brian Holcombe]

I pay less for Honduran than teak and I don’t need to replace all of my tooling when I’m done with something in Honduran, the same cannot be said for teak.

[brian zawatsky]

I priced Honduran mahogany at about 6.50 a bdft, so that’s probably what I’ll do. It’s nice stuff to work with, and more dimensionally stable than sapele (although more expensive too). Honestly if I bought rift or 1/4’d white oak it would be just as expensive.

[brian zawatsky]

You're building this Neaderthal-style? That is, you're cutting all those joints by hand? If so, I'd go with a softwood -- WRC, or the like. Hardwood like white oak would be stronger, but I'd be cutting the joints with a dado head on a table saw.

I haven’t totally decided yet. Even if I do machine cut the joinery, I put the wood selection question here because this is pretty much the only sub-forum that I use. Also I trust the opinions & expertise of some of the members here so it’s less like drinking from a firehose when you ask a question of this type.