Ash

White ash (Fraxinus americana) is a light-colored, ring-porous domestic hardwood with a coarse, oak-like texture — historically one of the most common, most affordable utility hardwoods in North America. "Historically" is doing some real work in that sentence; see below.

Working Properties

Ash machines cleanly with hand or power tools, glues and finishes without complaint, and is one of the best domestic species for steam bending going. That bendability, paired with excellent shock resistance from the same ring-porous structure giving it its coarse texture, is exactly why it ended up in tool handles, baseball bats, and bent furniture parts for over a century.

A Note on Availability

Ash populations across North America have taken a genuine beating from the emerald ash borer, an invasive beetle first detected in Michigan in 2002 that has since killed hundreds of millions of trees. The "boring, reliable default" era is over — expect prices to keep climbing and domestic supply to keep tightening.

Typical Uses

Tool handles, baseball bats, sporting goods, flooring, and furniture.