Hickory Lumber Questions

[Jason Lester]

I'm using Hickory for the first time to build some chairs. I purchased what I assume was Common grade 8/4 a few weeks ago from a small local lumber dealer. The amount of defects in it is really high. Does Hickory typically have a much larger number of defects (like hidden cracks, splits, through knotholes etc.) than other local hardwoods? Even for Common grade, I was surprised by how bad it was. I'm heading to Wall Lumber this Friday to get some more and they do have Select available, which I'm sure will be better. Should I still expect to find defects that can't be seen until it is milled down? I know it's hard and dulls edges and don't mind dealing with that, I hate to waste so much wood though.

[Lee Schierer]

I purchased over 350 bdft from a local sawmill years ago. I've made a number of pieces of furniture from it. The hickory that I had was pretty much knot free with very little sap wood. The tree(s) probably grew in a dense forest. Typically trees that grow in the open have many more branches and therefore, more knots than forest grown trees. Here are some of the pieces I've made and you will find no significant knots.
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I sold some of the hickory I had to some SMC members who can attest to hickory that is mostly knot free.

You do tend to see some end checking in the boards. Planing hickory is a bit tricky. You have to feel the surface after the rough cut is removed. I take an old tee shirt and softly drag it on the surface. One direction it will slide smoothly, the other direction it will tend to snag. You want to run it through your planer or jointer so the knives see the sliding direction, not the snaggy direction. This will reduce the tendency for tear out. You also want a slow feed rate. If you see chipping on a lot of surface, run the next pass in the other direction. Hickory is hard so HSS will dull quickly. It will also tend to get burn marks if you hesitate while feeding it through cuts. You'll want a well tuned table saw for cross cuts and rips. I use Freud blades and they have worked very well with hickory. I always use a zero clearance insert on my saw. It also makes the shop smell nice and you can smoke things on the grill with the scraps.

[Jim Dwight]

My experience with hickory is much more limited but consistent with what Lee said. I put down about 600 bd ft of pre-finished hickory flooring when we were doing an expansion a few years ago. There is a lot of color variation in the boards but not a lot of defects. I used some of the left over hickory flooring like lumber in small things and it worked normally with carbide cutters. We like the color variation in the flooring, looks less formal to us.

[Jeff Roltgen]

I'm into about 400 BD FT of a project that will hit close to 800 before done. It is sorted and sold as Brown Hickory, select and better, so blond sapwood varies from about 1-11%.
Large percentage are horribly cracked. Some 8-9" wide samples being pulled first for raised panels needed up to 18" chopped off end to get past the cracking. Many had surface cracks full length, resulting in lots of pieces needing filler, and in some cases, even ladled in level with medium CA glue. Had one raised panel slide off planer outfeed, hit the floor and went to pieces.
Profiling edges of assembled doors almost always required a climb cut, depending on grain direction, as the resultant slivers that would catch could go very deep. Gluing cope/stick not too bad, but several needed clamping due to glue pressure initiating more splitting as copes were clamped in place. Ugh.

Promised myself to convince all future clientele to select something more refined. I'm cussing this stuff way too much, and at today's pricing, it is even more frustrating.

Yep. That's hickory for you. Modern machinery has made it possible to turn into furnishings, but many an old-timer has stated it should be used strictly as firewood.

Jeff

[Jason Lester]

Thanks, my experience so far is closer to Jeff's. I'm hoping I can get some more like what Lee and Jim described. I love the look and I'm doing hickory bark seats, so it goes together really well.

Jason

[Warren Lake]

only one project in hickory, Wood was stellar, I hand pick. Knives were toast when done but fine, Old guy got a huge load for .35 a board foot. Suppliers liked him as past he bought massive in his career. Lower grade he worked around stuff and made a beautiful kitchen. All mortise and tennon no cope and stick, face frames same.

[Mitch schiffer]

I have used a lot of hickory, mostly for cabinets. If you buy rustic hickory it will have more knots. The large amounts of cracking is likely from improper drying. If hickory is exposed to sunlight when it is green it will have a lot of surface checking similar to white oak in my experience. The same thing can happen if it is kiln dried too fast. The thicker the lumber the harder it is to dry, so you will see more defects in that especially if the sawyer or kiln is somewhat inexperienced. I am certainly no expert on drying but I do own a vacuum kiln. Last month a green 9/4 hickory slab accidentally got mixed in with some green maple slabs in the kiln. It was ran on the typically schedule for maple. The maple turned out great the hickory had some checking.

[John TenEyck]

The standard grades of hardwood lumber are:

Lumber sold by Woodworkers Source, unless marked otherwise, is graded “Select” or higher; however, some boards may be cut for shipping or to make “Packs”. In these cases your yield will exceed the National Hardwood Lumber Association standard. Some imported woods are available only in small cuttings.

Grade	Trade Name	Min. board width	Min. board length	Min. cutting size	Min. Area of clear cuttings required
Firsts and Seconds	FAS	6"	8'	4" x 5' or 3" x 7'	83-1/3%
FAS One Face	F1F	6"	8'	4" x 5' or 3" x 7'	83-1/3%
Select	SEL	4"	6'	4" x 5' or 3" x 7	83-1/3%
No. 1 Common	1C	3"	4'	4" x 2' or 3" x 3'	66-2/3%
No. 2A Common	2C	3"	4'	3" x 2'	50%
No. 2B Common	3AC	3"	4'	3" x 2'	33-1/3%
No. 3A Common	3BC	3"	4'	1-1/2" x 2'	25%

John

[Maurice Mcmurry]

Hickory was traditionally used for pallets and charcoal around here. I like it for its strength and the rustic look is growing on me.

[Richard Coers]

The standard grades of hardwood lumber are:


Lumber sold by Woodworkers Source, unless marked otherwise, is graded “Select” or higher; however, some boards may be cut for shipping or to make “Packs”. In these cases your yield will exceed the National Hardwood Lumber Association standard. Some imported woods are available only in small cuttings.

Grade	Trade Name	Min. board width	Min. board length	Min. cutting size	Min. Area of clear cuttings required
Firsts and Seconds	FAS	6"	8'	4" x 5' or 3" x 7'	83-1/3%
FAS One Face	F1F	6"	8'	4" x 5' or 3" x 7'	83-1/3%
Select	SEL	4"	6'	4" x 5' or 3" x 7	83-1/3%
No. 1 Common	1C	3"	4'	4" x 2' or 3" x 3'	66-2/3%
No. 2A Common	2C	3"	4'	3" x 2'	50%
No. 2B Common	3AC	3"	4'	3" x 2'	33-1/3%
No. 3A Common	3BC	3"	4'	1-1/2" x 2'	25%

John

Here's your answer. If you asked for common, you probably got #3 common.

[Patrick Kane]

I agree wholeheartedly with Jeff. Used it once or twice and I don’t care to ever work with it again.

2com is mostly trash for many hardwoods. If you bought 3com then yes, it will be more defect than wood. I don’t believe any of my commercial lumber suppliers even offer 3com, because it’s not worth drying and storing correctly.

Attach some photos. Excessive surface checking makes me believe it was improperly dried or improperly handled, or that it is wood cut from branches. Wind shake can exhibit itself in checking throughout the length of the board too. Any of these would make me seriously question the lumber supplier. Wind shake is very obvious before the log is sawn, and the others are bad practices.

[Patrick Kane]

I meant to add that I’ve used 8-10,000 bdft of 1com species, and I didn’t mean to imply that the common grades are all firewood. A lot of projects do not require FAS and select or better. Frankly, I think a lot of people buy the top lumber grades when they really don’t need to. Don’t need to, and I would argue that they shouldn’t. It’s a free market, but cutting up FAS into coasters and cutting boards is wasteful. With that said, 2com is pretty rough, and like I mentioned above, I don’t think 3com is even available at my wholesaler.

[Ken Combs]

Hickory was traditionally used for pallets and charcoal around here. I like it for its strength and the rustic look is growing on me.

Definitely regional. And probably depends on the source. Hickory in my area is often found here mixed with dense growth oak and sort of 'scrubby'. And, I've been told that hickory and pecan are sold as one in our area.There is a lot of pecan in OK, and they are big trees so the lumber usually grades well. If mixed with real hickory in trade it would look great!

But bottom line is that your impression is mostly due to grade, not specie.

There use to be a guy that made weekend markets around here with pickup loads of tool handles. All hickory, made by him with a special lathe.

[Lee Schierer]

Just as an added note: There are over twelve varieties of trees that are identified as hickory. The wood I used was Shag bark hickory.

[Jason Lester]

The dealer I got this from isn't real specific on grades, I'm just assuming it would likely be one of the common grades.

Here's some pics of what I'm dealing with. I was hoping to get rungs from each of these. On the left one, you can see the crack along the grain at the top left. The center was a rung that rounded fine and I couldn't see any issues. When turning the tenon though, it cracked down the middle. The wood in there was discolored, so I think it was there all along, I just couldn't see it. The one on the right has a similar spot held open with my awl. The wood along that crack is also discolored. It all had those black streaks through it.

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This is about a 2' section from one of the rough boards. Between the cracks and all the knots, I couldn't even get a rung from this section.
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It's not all bad though, I got this chair out of it plus another matching one. The rear legs on both have some issues though with cracks that I had to glue. They're mostly invisible now. I know some people don't like combining sapwood and heartwood like this, but I love the look personally.
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Thanks, Jason