Is Beech A Hardwood Or Softwood

Birch is reserved for butcher blocks some tool handles and specialty.

Is beech a hardwood or softwood.

Hardwood is more difficult to saw drill and nail than other woods requiring more time and labor which translates into a greater expense. Combine this with loggers around where we live tending to leave beech and it s easy to develop a stand of almost pure beech. The distinction between hardwood and softwood is a poor one and really is between angiosperms and gymnosperms. Softwood can work well in some applications decks shops and outbuildings for example.

Classifying wood as either a hardwood or softwood comes down to its physical structure and makeup and so it is overly simple to think of hardwoods as being hard and durable compared to soft and workable softwoods. Beech is an important and widely used hardwood in europe. On a hardness scale birch lumber ranks at the top with hard rock maple and in fact is often mistaken for maple. When the overstory is harvested the beech is released and has a head start over other species.

It generally is less dense than hardwood. This wood differs from hardwood by its way of water transportation inside the tree it s structure is simpler than the structure of hardwood. European beech hardwood fagus sylvatica this tree grows to around the same heights as american beech though the diameter is more consistently measured to about five feet. Softwood is represented by cedar pine fir redwood spruce.

Beech counts as a hardwood tree for it has flowers. Its hardness wear resistance strength and excellent bending capabilities coupled with its low price make this hardwood a mainstay for many european woodworkers. Hardwood is always much more expensive than the softer woods. The coloring is also very similar to that of american beech with shades of pink complimenting the creamy color of the wood though a darker golden color arises in veneer.

Other soft hardwoods. This happens to be generally true but there are exceptions such as in the cases of wood from yew trees a softwood that is relatively hard and wood from balsa trees a.