Ash

Ash is the hardwood that does the jobs oak is overkill for. It’s pale, straight-grained and genuinely tough — the traditional timber for tool handles and anything else that has to absorb a knock without snapping.

That shock resistance is what ash does better than almost anything else in the trade. Axe handles, hammer shafts and sports equipment have been ash for centuries because the wood flexes and recovers where a more brittle timber would fail.

For furniture, ash is the practical choice when you want a light-toned hardwood with an oak-like grain. A good deal of modern furniture that looks like pale oak is ash.

European or American?

Worth knowing before you buy, because they’re different timbers in practice.

European ash has been under real pressure from ash dieback, which has affected supply across the continent and made availability inconsistent. American ash has generally been the more dependable buy.

If you’re quoting a job that needs a consistent run of timber, this is worth asking about rather than assuming.

The one thing that catches people out: finishing

Ash is ring-porous — its earlywood vessels are large and open. That’s why you can see and feel the grain so clearly, and it’s also why ash steam-bends so well, because those open cells compress.

But those open pores take stain differently from the surrounding wood. Go straight at it with a stain and the pores soak up far more than the wood around them — stripy, exaggerated grain that no amount of sanding afterwards will fix.

The answer is a sanding sealer or grain filler first. Do that and ash stains evenly and predictably.

Left natural and simply oiled, ash is one of the easiest hardwoods to finish well. It’s the stained-and-lacquered work that needs the extra step.

Where ash doesn’t belong

Outside. Ash has no natural durability and it will rot.

Keep it indoors or under cover, and don’t specify it for anything in ground contact. That’s not a shortcoming specific to ash — plenty of hardwoods share it — but it’s worth saying plainly, because “hardwood” is often taken to mean “durable”, and with ash it doesn’t.