Hardwood used for Toys.
Hardwoods Toys live forever.
Hickory
Hickory trees are slow growing, yet they make one of the heaviest and strongest woods in America. Tough yet flexible it is in high demand for axe handles and every sort of striking tool. American covered wagons rolled westward on Hickory hubs and Hickory fellows. Skies, too, must stand violent strains, so that American Hickory is the most prized wood for skiers. Hickory for dowels and axles, where the need for strength is paramount.
Black Cherry
This is a favourite wood. Sweet smelling, easy to work, beautiful in colour, stable in use, are just a few of its attractions. Its has the propensity to change colour with time, starting out a light red it grows deep red with time. This process is accelerated with exposure to light. Sometimes, at outdoor art fairs, you notice a lighter patch where a tag or a string blocks sunlight, contrasting with the surrounding suntanned surface. Cherry also wears smoother and smoother with use; a property making it a good choice for weaving shuttles and wooden toys.
Walnut
The aristocrat of cabinet woods, Walnut has been in high demand for centuries. Its beautiful dark brown colour is coupled with a long list of desirable working properties. Slow growing and hard to find in large size it is a very expensive wood. Characteristics ideal for handles and gun stocks make it a great choice for toys as well.
Sugar Maple
Known by its alias, Hard Rock Maple, this wood varies from pale white to medium brown in colour and is very heavy and hard. Sometimes iridescent flecks appear in the grain giving a glittering appearance. You sometimes find old tap holes in the boards made during some long ago sugaring. These wounds often introduce fungal infections which leave dark, multicoloured streaks above and below the tap holes. Eventually these infections do more serious damage and weaken the wood. Maple’s strength and hardness make it very durable in school furniture, nail kegs and wooden toys.
White Birch
You would have a hard time distinguishing the wood of White Birch from that of Sugar Maple and their working properties are as similar. But, never mistake the trees, just the wood. Birch grows throughout the world and its characteristic white bark makes identification in the woods easy. White Birch is used for dowels and train wheels.
Butternut
This tree of the Walnut family is sometimes called White Walnut because its wood is a lighter brown colour than Black Walnut. It is difficult to work with tools and somewhat soft. It is used sparing in parts of a toy that are protected by a harder stronger species, where its beauty can be seen yet not make a weak toy.
Tuliptree
The American Tuliptree is the tallest hardwood tree in North America, reaching 200 feet in the Southern Appalachians. Extending in range west to the Mississippi its height is only surpassed by the tallest pines, and its growth rate is fastest of all passing 5 feet per year on good sites. Its wood is creamy in colour with streaks of light green and sometimes purple.
White Ash
Only hickory is tougher than White Ash (just barely) and consequently it is the choice for hockey sticks and baseball bats. Its wood colour varies from creamy white to light brown.
Elm
This wood shows its dark yellowish brown colour when you apply an oil finish. Very hard and very contrary, often warping in the drying process Elm's interlocking grain gives it great strength, but don't choose this for your fireplace, it is nearly impossible to split. Once past these frustrations it is a beautiful wood.
Mahogany
This is a tropical (non US) wood. One of the lighter hardwoods it excels in nearly every working property. Its deep colour shows why it has been the favourite furniture wood for centuries
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Hardwood used for Toys.
Red Oak
Oak nearly equals Cherry as the top choice for toys. Oak's hardness makes it nearly indestructible, whether in Old Ironsides or in wooden toys. A good choice for ride-on toys and wooden blocks. Its prominent grain gives it a texture immediately familiar to many people. A couple dozen trees are divided into general White Oak and Red Oak groups. Choose Red Oak for toys.
Beech
A close look at Beech wood grain betrays its relationship to Oak. The wood ray structure so prominent in Oak shows in Beech as well. Creamy tan in colour its texture is smoother than Oak though it shares Oak's hardness. Beech trees are recognizable in the forest by the many initials carved into their smooth gray bark. Young men with jack-knives can't seem to resist. You can find Beech wood almost anywhere in the world.