Building Furniture with Softwoods?

I hear from woodworkers all the time. They tell me they’ve got their space, built their bench, and sharpened their tools…but they don’t have wood. 

It’s a common problem, and the Internet isn’t making it any better. Once you’ve seen 100 Instagram dovetails cut from walnut and rock maple, you might just throw in the towel. How are you supposed to achieve this joinery perfection if you can’t even source the damn wood?

Well, what wood did you build that bench out of? 

You got any left over? 

Pine and fir for regular people.

If you look at fancy antique furniture, you see the same woods over and over: mahogany, walnut, cherry, and oak. These were the woods for rich people who bought expensive pieces from skilled artisans. But what about the artisans themselves? What about the farmer, the blacksmith, and the miller? Their furniture was frequently made from pine, hemlock and fir: woods that were light, workable, and affordable. 

Flip through Russell Hawes Kettell’s outstanding book The Pine Furniture of Early New England. It has every imaginable piece of furniture from foot stools to carved dressers and every stick of it is made from pine.

If craftsmen from centuries ago made such lovely work from common softwoods, we might need to rethink our own wood choices.

Not so Soft.

The line between hardwoods and softwoods is confusing for the beginner. 

A hardwood comes from a deciduous tree. These are the broad-leafed species that drop their foliage in the fall and stand bare all winter. Maple, oak, and ash are hard woods. 

This maple tree is a hardwood. It will lose its leaves in the fall and its wood is truly hard.

Softwoods are conifers. They have needles instead of leaves and they stay green the whole year. Pine, spruce, fir, and hemlock are all softwoods. 

This Southern Yellow Pine is technically a soft wood, but its timber is surprisingly dense and sturdy. 

So when we say that a certain wood is a “hardwood,” were talking about the species of tree. Yes, the hardest hardwoods are harder than any soft wood, but balsa is a hardwood. Ever built a model plane? Then you know that the line between hard and soft is pretty dumb. 

Woodworkers use a measurement called the Janka scale to describe the hardness of any species. On this scale, a common hardwood like poplar has a rating of 540, which is respectable, but both Southern Yellow Pine and Douglas Fir are actually harder. Additionally, many softwoods are extremely stiff compared to hardwoods; they can bear more weight per square inch without bending. This is why we build houses from pine and spruce. They’re light, but they hold an awful lot of weight. (Read more about the strength and stiffness of wood here.) 

Know Your Wood

I’m making a pretty good pitch for softwoods, but don’t run straight to the home center. Many big-box retailers sell an imported mystery timber they call “white wood.” I don’t know what it is, but I know you shouldn’t use it. This stuff is far too soft and flexible for even light-duty furniture. We’ll need to step it up.

My local Home Depot sells mostly white wood, but also stocks fir and Douglas Fir 2x4s. Of the two, Douglas Fir is harder and it has a pinkish color that ages nicely. If I want to drive a little further, Lowe’s stocks Southern Yellow Pine. This is probably the hardest and stiffest of the common softwoods. I used this stuff for the Joiners Bench and I would happily make furniture from it. Lowe’s, and a lot of other retailers, stock SYP in sizes all the way up to 2x12 in 16 foot lengths. That’s a lot of wood for not a lot of money.

You’ll probably have an easier time finding White Pine, especially in boards. This wood is softer and less stiff than its southern cousin, but it works with a buttery smoothness and it’s durable enough for most projects. I wouldn’t build a kitchen table out of White Pine, but anything else is fair game. 

Many places also sell “SPF”, which stands for Spruce Pine Fir. This means you’re getting whichever of those woods was cheapest or easiest to cut and mill. As you become more experienced, you’ll be able to tell the exact species you’re getting, but it doesn’t make a huge difference. All three are solid choices, especially if the price is right.

Perfect for Hand Tools?

Construction-lumber furniture gets a bad rap these days. Most of the furniture I’ve seen made from 2x4s is, well…ugly. When you combine construction-grade wood with a consumer-level machine tools and pocket-screw joinery, you don’t end up with graceful heirlooms. Instead, you get heavy, blocky pieces that are fine for the front porch but no good for inside your home.

This is where the hand-tool woodworker has a huge advantage. We’re not limited to the straight lines and 90° corners of the machine world, and we can turn even 2x4s into big, smooth surfaces. And many entry-level tools were designed with the construction trades in mind. What do carpenters cut all day long? Softwood.

So this saw and this saw  both cut pine and fir very effectively. Even a cheap plane transformed into a scrub will hog off the rounded corners on a 2x4 with minimum fuss. There’s no shame in fasteners, but simple joinery is easily executed in good softwood. And if you make a mistake, who cares? Cut yourself a fresh length and do it again. Instead of being precious about our purpleheart and saving every scrap, let’s work fast and carefully in pine. Let the firewood pile grow.

The Way Forward.

This month, I’m going to put extra emphasis on building with softwoods. We’ll have at least one project made from construction lumber and we’ll spend extra time learning how to use this wood to its fullest potential. 

*This post is adapted from my new monthly newsletter, Fabrication First. Ill do more content like this, but it will be posted here before it goes out to the list. Thanks for reading!!