# Is hickory difficult to work with?



## ndguy (Aug 31, 2009)

My finished carpentry skills are still in the developmental stage. I have built some cabinets in oak and birch, but my next project is a bar for my basement and I want to know what to expect when I change to Hickory. I have heard it is more difficult and if so any tips to help out would be great. Thanks!

Thanks!


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## a1Jim (Aug 9, 2008)

I've never used Hickory so I'm interested in what others have to say about it too.


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## teenagewoodworker (Jan 31, 2008)

it is a difficult wood to work with…. it doesnt like to be worked by hand tools period… chisels hand planes doesnt matter it doesn't take well to them… also very very hard… splinters alot too


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## closetguy (Sep 29, 2007)

It's the toughest wood I have ever worked with. My planer growls when I run hickory though it. For this reason, I tend to shy away from using it. Purpleheart is probably the next hardest wood I work with, but it is soft compared to hickory. However, hickory is pretty wood, especially with a good mix of heart and sap wood running though it. I have seen some outstanding cabinets made out of it.


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## knotscott (Feb 27, 2009)

Hickory is hard and heavy….worse than hard maple.


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## commajockey (Jun 2, 2009)

Man, you guys are all Hickory-haters. ;-) I built my entire set of kitchen cabinet doors out of hickory and actually enjoyed working with it. Yes, it's heavy. Very heavy, in fact. Yes, it's tough to work with hand tools. But keep your bits and blades sharp, plan your edge routing carefully, take very light cuts with a surface planer, and don't plan on doing too much hand mortising and I think you'll be pretty happy.

Actually, I used hand tools a bit here and there in my hickory work to fine tune tenons, muntins and so on and had pretty good success. And I'm not exactly a Chris Schwarz when it comes to hand work.

I don't know how intricate you're planning your bar to be, but hickory does quite well with relatively straightforward work and finishes really nicely. The tone is anywhere from blonde to a deep chocolate color and looks terrific with a nice clear satin oil-based poly.

Super intricate/delicate work however and I'd concur with our brethren that hickory might be challenging for that. But I'd happily turn to hickory again any time.


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## teenagewoodworker (Jan 31, 2008)

yeah Hickory is beautiful. intricate work stay away from hickory. i like it for handles and stuff but for a bartop it should be good. personally im not a fan of the heartwood i like the darker pieces of hickory heart as opposed to the lighter ones… it takes awhile to pick through the pile but if you take your time selecting the wood its beatiful…. it also has some of the most beautiful knots ive even seen


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## GaryC (Dec 31, 2008)

I agree, its really hard to work with but I think it's worth it. But, as was already said, keep the tools sharp


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## cabinetmaster (Aug 28, 2008)

I have to agree with commajockey. Hickory is beatiful wood and makes beautiful cabinets. It is hard wood but hey. It works about like Oak to me. We make cabinets with hickory all the time here.


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## Karson (May 9, 2006)

Hard on tools. and heavy. The grain paterns have to be something that you can live with. I heard that some people use a whiting finish to kill some of the grain patterns.


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## ChunkyC (Jun 28, 2009)

And the nuts are great to eat too but they take a sledge hammer to open, no joking!  Hardest and heaviest darn wood I've had the pleasure to work with.

As a kid, we had 1,000's hickory trees on the farm. Dad and I must have cut 20 truckloads of hickory a year for firewood. Breaks my heart now to think of all of that wood that kept us warm all winter. We always used hickory to make the handles for the axe and sledge hammers. They would last a long time, or at least until I missed and split the handle.


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## ndguy (Aug 31, 2009)

So, what I am hearing is buy a new saw blades before I start, take small amount off with the planner and joiner at a time so a few extra passes will be necessary and if I am not concerned with matching grain pattern (which I do not want it to match) and if my design is not too difficult I will still be challenged, but not disappointed. I am in!

I am fortunate to live about 60 miles from Renneberg Hardwoods and they sell rustic Hickory plywood. I looked at it today and it has tremenous character!


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## fge (Sep 8, 2008)

The best wood in my opinion. We have built 3 kitchens out of Hickory so far, we are building a hickory kitchen right now. I agree with Commajockey. Great wood and awesome charactor. It is very hard, it takes me more passes to raise a panel in hickory then in say oak. I think it compares favorably with hard maple in hardness. My table saw blade cuts it like butter and I actually think my current blade is nearing the end of it's life. Go for it, you will enjoy it. I actually use a shaper when building doors so I am not sure how a router table would hold up doing the same task for say raising panels. I cut door lip edges with my PC 690 in the hickory with no problem.


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## huff (May 28, 2009)

I have built quite a few cabinets and entertainment centers with Hickory. Everyone is right. Very hard and brittle. Loves to blow out if you try to mill too much at one time. A new saw blade and remember to take twice as many passes with the planer, jointer, and router. I love the look of Hickory and if you take your time to pick your panels first from your stock of Hickory, You can make a real statement with the flow of grain from one to the other. Let the light and dark grain flow from one to the other. It will be almost impossible to pick all light or all dark. That's the beauty of Hickory. The first major piece of furniture my 16 year old son built in my shop was a hickory corner home entertainment center. I figured if he could build it in hickory, he could handle anything. Turned out great!


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## cabinetmaster (Aug 28, 2008)

Be sure to pre-drill all your screw holes for hinges, etc. If you don't, the wood will split. If wood doesn't split the screw will break. Lesson learned the hard way….............LOL


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## Xtreme90 (Aug 29, 2009)

Has anybody tried to turn it? It's some hard stuff to turn when I can't turn it on my 1000lb jet lathe.  but it is sooooooooo beautiful!


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## rustedknuckles (Feb 17, 2008)

I'm building a small box from hickory right now and so far have had no problems, sharp tools help I'm sure, but no issues. This is my first time using it so extensive experience is not speaking here.


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## mart (Jun 23, 2008)

Here are a couple of projects I did from hickory. I like the wood personally.

http://lumberjocks.com/projects/8908

http://lumberjocks.com/projects/8299

I did find it tough to plane but just had to take thinner passes. I found it less likely to tear out than the maple we get up here. It seems that the maple that is available in Alaska wants to tear out and splinter badly if it's even in the same room with a router.

I love the warm glow of hickory and would gladly use it again.

Mart


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## roman (Sep 28, 2007)

it works really well, if not best, in my smoker !


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## ndguy (Aug 31, 2009)

Nice project Mart, I like the wood grain.


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## jimc (Mar 6, 2008)

I made a box out of hickory and vowed I'd never make another small box using it. The box is beautiful, solid & heavy but the wood is hell on router bits! I was trying to cut grooves for a sliding top and bottom - broke three 1/8" router bits doing so, using the slowest feed rate I felt practicable. That gets expensive!!! Suppose I could have used a slotting bit instead of a 1/8" upcut spiral. It cut well with my table saw and seemed to sand well. I didn't try to use a plane and don't have a jointer or planer so can't comment on that.

Jim


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## Dano46 (Sep 21, 2009)

Hickory is a beautiful wood, but very heavy, very hard, difficult to work with, it does splinter a lot, and it also splits somewhat. I still like it. Sharp tools, and pre-drilling is the secret. Sounds like most of you have used it at one time or another.


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## Rick Dennington (Aug 27, 2009)

When I built my shop, I had about 3-4 Hickory trees on the land I cleared. The rest were almost all oak, and a couple of Sweet gum trees, and a couple of Cherry trees. Once I got them cut into some 6-10 ft. logs, I tried to work some short Hickory for re-sawing on the b.s.. Not good!! Eat up 2 blades. They were about 20-22" long. One thing I do know-- They make a good hot fire in the fireplace for a backlog!!! lol.


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## dennis (Aug 3, 2006)

I like it. Machines up real nice. Minimum tear out. Did someone say something about sharp blades…


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## JJohnston (May 22, 2009)

My parents had all new hickory cabinets put in their kitchen about 6 months ago, and they had 2 drawers left over that had to be rebuilt to the right width. So, I now have a very small stash waiting for me to get my shop in order. I'm going to try to make a mallet out of the sides and backs (kind of plain looking), and I think there will probably be enough in the fronts (much nicer looking) for a couple of picture frames and maybe a couple of letter openers, something like that.


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## pvwoodcrafts (Aug 31, 2007)

Hickory? I won't do a consignment job with it. Too many do overs because of tear out. Nothing worse than half your door panels having a chunk tore out while making raised panels


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## Mbogle (Mar 15, 2013)

Ok. So I have a hickory bookcase that I have been working on for what seems forever. I put the face frame on it and need to flush the sides of the frame to the case. Earlier I was using a flush trim bit in my router table and seemed to grab the wood and cause tear out / splintering. Anyone ever have that with hickory and found a solution?


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## rrww (Aug 12, 2012)

If you have the chance to hand pick the ply from Renneberg do it. I have used some of their rustic hickory ply and the filler they used for knots was less than ideal - but the rest was fine. Have sharp tooling and you will be fine. We use a bunch of hickory.


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## ssnvet (Jan 10, 2012)

Looking on the bright side… the BTU content of Hickory is the highest of any of the domestic hardwoods.

Sign me up for 2 chords of all you guyses scrap :^)


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## darthford (Feb 17, 2013)

I wanted hickory kitchen cabinets for years and now that I have them…meh I wish I had gone with cherry or oak. Solid hickory raised panels and frames, 3/4 plywood cabinet boxes, these cabinets will still be standing when the rest of the house falls down but they stand out too much, like looking at someone with the big BUG EYES. The #2 knotty oak floors on the other hand are awesome, I think oak or cherry cabinets would have been a better fit.


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## stevepeterson (Dec 17, 2009)

We bought a house with Hickory cabinets and they are beautiful. The previous owner that built the house said his cabinet maker stopped making hickory cabinets because they were so much work. The results are worth it.


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## BurtC (Oct 30, 2009)

I made a hickory kitchen cabinet for above the fridge as a very first raised panel cabinet ever. I was hesitant of tackling this but I went for it anyway. The wood is hard, stringy like other said. Routing the rail, stiles and raised panels I invested in the Frued Quad bits and just shaved away slowly. Take your time and enjoy.


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## Quanter50 (Feb 11, 2012)

Speaking of cracking hickory nuts. We have a few hickory trees out front here in the woods. This year the trees are loaded with nuts. I never knew how good they were until now. I put a handful in my raisin bran every morning.


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## johnstoneb (Jun 14, 2012)

Red Oak has a janka hardnes of about 1300
Hard Maple is about 1450
Hickory is about 1500
Purpleheart is about 2400
Hickory is a little harder than Red oak but has a tighter grain than the oak. It is between Red Oak and hard maple in workability.


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## C_PLUS_Woodworker (Jun 10, 2010)

johnstoneb:

Thanks a bunch for teaching me the term and meaning of Janka hardness

I had always kinda wondered if there was an empirical method of measuring the hardness of a particular wood

Just a simple Wiki article was all I needed and wanted…..

But, I would not have even known the "word" without your post.

I like knowing things…..........and am kind of a vocabulary freak.

Thanks…...............Bruce


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## Sawdust2012 (Sep 17, 2013)

i recently made a few pens out of some dried hickory. It is as hard as Chinese math. The grain is very tight, and dense, but it finishes beautifully. When you consider that golf club shafts, car wheel spokes, and gym floors used to be made out of the stuff, you can understand. When I was turning it, I could feel heat from the shavings that landed on my arm!


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## bannerpond1 (Mar 15, 2013)

We cut down a hickory tree when we cleared to build a house, and the biggest log spalted while it lay there for a year or more. I have some spectacular spalted hickory that makes great panels for box lids and have book matched some for small door panels. The wood is great, but it doesn't like saws or router bits. It'll burn with the slightest hesitation on your part when you push it through the blades or router bit.

I wouldn't throw it away, but I wouldn't buy it. Though I had hickory cabinets in one house and liked it very much, we chose to put a pecan stain on it because the sapwood and the heartwood are so starkly different. I wouldn't make my own cabinets with hickory, but if I had a log, I'd try to induce spalting by putting one end of a short log in a bed of sawdust and keeping it damp.

Attached is a photo of some my spalted hickory.


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## richardwootton (Jan 17, 2013)

I have several slabs of Pignut Hickory that I am currently using a book matched pair to build a coffee table. Since I'm flattening using hand planes I think I'm going to build a high angle jack and smoothing plane to deal with the tricky grain. With my Stanley planes I get tear out unless I take the absolute thinnest of shavings.


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## ScrubPlane (May 22, 2012)

Yes, it will turn quite well but it is advisable to seal coat in wax if you need to leave it chucked over night. It will 'check' relatively quickly.


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## Mahdeew (Jul 24, 2013)

Hickory is mostly used for ax handles and such. When using for burning it produces a very hot fire and in some places, you can tap hickory to make a wonderful "maple syrup" It is a #1 wood for bending; making hay rakes and such.










Here is something I made out of a tree. the inner bark makes an excellent chair seat by wiving it with 1" strips.


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## MrRon (Jul 9, 2009)

Hickory is hard to work, but with the right tools, no different from any other wood. In my case, because I have metal working machines, I can machine hickory as if it were metal. I know this doesn't answer your question, but look toward keeping your tools scary sharp and use tools that are made of HSS; drill bits and chisels for example.


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## Mezmar (Jun 30, 2014)

I' came late to cabinetmaking. I'm 58 now and worked with an old timer for a few years and have had my own shop now for four years. I've been doing kitchens, pantries and built-bookshelves in red oak, cherry, sassafras, hard maple and ash. I recently started a kitchen and the client wanted hickory, and I find I am doubting my own abilities. I'm finding it a beautiful wood, but hard with a tendency to splinter. I have read the blogs which stress the importance of sharp tools, and I believe that my cutters are good. Nonetheless, I have ruined a good half dozen door panels on my shaper-leading me to ask what speed would you more experienced craftsmen recommend setting the shaper? In my relatively short tenure in the shop, I have only run the machine at 6000 rpm. I have tried using a 45 degree Shaker bit on my table router and have had better results with it than the shaper. Any feedback would be very welcome. Thanks.


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## TiggerWood (Jan 1, 2014)

In my little experience, I believe the highest speed possible would be good.


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## English (May 10, 2014)

I made a set of Kitchen cabinets from Hickory, I was able to use my router table for the rail and style cuts, making 3 passes on each rail and style. I ran the router at 15,000 RPMs. Even with this approach I had 25 % scrap due to tear out. For raising panels I finally gave up on the router table, made a jig and did them on the table saw. I also found that sanding was an issue. I eventually purchased a drum sander to sand the 28 doors in my project.

The cabinets came out beautiful, but I will never do it again. Too much work.


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## AlaskaGuy (Jan 29, 2012)

Working with hickory is certainly doable. I did one kitchen out of hickory and the only problem I had was I had to pre drill the face frames (after using the kreg pocket jig) in the mating pieces or they would split quite often when driving the screws.

I did a complete kitchen using blood wood which is much harder than hickory.

On the Janka scale Red Oak is 1290, hard maple 1450,hickory is 1820 and blood wood comes in at 2900. A lot of guy build "stuff" from exotic woods much harder than blood wood.

You can look up the hardness of wood on the Janka scale.

Link to blood wood kitchen http://lumberjocks.com/projects/60950

The Janka hardness test measures the lb/in2 required to embed a .444-inch steel ball to half its diameter in wood. It is one of the best measures of the ability of a wood species to withstand denting and wear. It is also a good indicator of how hard or easy a species is to saw or nail.


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## Manitario (Jul 4, 2010)

I'm in the process of making a new vanity and mirror cupboard set for a bathroom remodel out of hickory. Honestly it sucks to work with. Murder on my tools, splintery and prone to really bad chip out. Looks great though, but not sure I'll ever use it again!


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## Manitario (Jul 4, 2010)

a comment on the Janka scale; wood hardness is only part of what makes up a woods "workability". I find that the grain structure of a wood a lot more of a factor than its hardness. For example, elm has a relatively low Janka hardness of 840, yet it is difficult to work with because of its interlocking grain structure; it chips and tears out like crazy. As well, I'd much rather use hard maple than oak for the same reason, despite it being "harder".


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## pops64 (Jul 2, 2014)

Hickory is one of my favorites to work with . Make sure your tools are sharp take your time watch for chips and tearouts .sharp tools most important with this wood. but nothing looks better than the two tone in gloss lacquer. and you cant beat the strength.


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## Earlextech (Jan 13, 2011)

I've built dozens of Hickory kitchens over the years. Sharp tools and smaller bites with them and you shouldn't have any problems. Patience my fellow woodworkers, patience. If you have time to fix it, you had time to do it right the first time.


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## Mezmar (Jun 30, 2014)

Sam,

What shaper speed do you recommend for raising panels on hickory with 3 inch cutters?


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## Earlextech (Jan 13, 2011)

I believe we were running it just below top speed which would be 8000 rpm. Most important is that you don't take too big a bite on each pass.


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## rwe2156 (May 7, 2014)

My experience: It was not fun!

Depends on what you're doing with it, like a lot of woods…..
I would not use it for a project requiring carving, for example.
I built a large kitchen out of hickory.
Nearly impossible to sand, so you need hand tools to clean up machine marks.
EVERY tool mark will show. Plan on doing a lot of scraping.

I used the same rail and stile router bit for the whole project and never burned (Whiteside).

Bottom line …. if I had it to do over again, I would use a different wood.


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