A beautiful but very “hard” wood. Lends itsself more to carpentry than to fine woodworking. It often took 45-60 mins to plane a 12 ft board. Screws, with pilot holes very often, striped the heads (square drive), snapped or simply reached a point where they stalled out. Found most effective method was a framing gun at +/- 100lbs. Have not yet attempted to glue any but will update this when I do. I suspect that this will not respond well to hand sanding and will require very sharp hand tools if they are not motorised. Still a beautiful wood.
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6 comments so far
Scott Bryan
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20784 posts in 721 days
posted 558 days ago
I have never had the opportunity to work with hickory but a friend of mine made a bookcase out of it that turned out to be gorgeous. It may be hard wo work with but it is a pretty wood with wonderful colors and grain pattern.
-- With God's help all things are possible- even woodworking. Woodworking is not just a hobby, it is an (expletive deleted) expensive hobby.
GaryK
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9539 posts in 887 days
posted 558 days ago
There are various types of hickory.
hickory, bitternut – Carya cordiformis
hickory, black – Carya texana
hickory, nutmeg – Carya myristicaeformis
hickory, pecan – Carya illinoensis
hickory, sand – Carya pallida
hickory, water – Carya aquatica
hickory. mockernut – Carya tomentosa
hickory, pignut – Carya glabra
hickory, shagbark – Carya ovata
hickory, shellbark – Carya lacinosa
Hickory has a Janka hardness of around 1800
-- Gary, East TX -- The longest journey begins with a single step.
matter
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209 posts in 668 days
posted 558 days ago
hickory works beautifully. You just need VERY sharp tools
-- The only easy wood project is a fire
teenagewoodworker
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2482 posts in 667 days
posted 558 days ago
ya i agree, I have a commission for hickory right now and it is a beautiful wood just it is very hard and i tend to treat it like the softer woods that I’m used to trying to force it through the tools (gotta get out of that habit). the other thing i don’t like is all the streaking and the heart wood. dying hickory is beautiful too if you have a bad piece with heartwood as two coats of dye will totally equalize everything. thanks for the post.
Dusty56
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3500 posts in 587 days
posted 556 days ago
I am trying to make a table for my Aunt and Uncle and I’ll be darned if I can keep the top flat for this project. It seems that the more figure is in the wood , the more it twists and warps . I guess there’s a reason they make baseball bats , etc. out of it instead of lumber. My local lumber supplier told me if I wanted boards thicker than 3/4” , I would have to glue them together myself. Wish me luck !!
-- You know you're getting old when you know the difference between you're (you are) and your (belonging to you) AND how to use them in a sentence .
a1Jim
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17115 posts in 476 days
posted 117 days ago
beautiful wood
-- Jim from Heirloom Woodshop, custom furniture ,maker, woodworking school, heirloomwoodshop.com