I Googled "Wood stability Charistics" and found Beech. I scrolled to this:
(Beech) Workability: Overall good workability; it machines well, and glues, finishes, and turns well. Beech also responds superbly to steam-bending. It does, however, have a large amount of movement in service, so movement and wood stability must be taken into account.
If you go back to reply #11 where i mentioned a quote (from memory way before i was 39/ever for the first time) from al old time carpenter on a job i was on about 100 years or so ago."Aye, I wouldn't use beech fer anything. It just follows the sun with all its twistin'." I also qualified that i have never used beech for anything but fire wood, so I am not an authority beyond what i have been told. all other accounts within this thread seem to indicate it is quid stable. JMB seems to think poplar is mrs stable. I have to gee with his observation in that i have used poplar (Tulip poplar) for projects where I want stability as the primary quality. I have never used over sized dado or allowed extra spacing when using tulip where I would have made allowances for expansion and contraction if using other woods. I have not used tulip for any of my larger projects where i felt i had to allow for expansion no matter what wood i used.
That is just my thought on the matter and much of what I think I know is not from a lot of experience but more from info here on the fog (discounting my own entries) and from builders and carpenters i have known in the past (some even since i turned 39 [wink])
Tinker
(Beech) Workability: Overall good workability; it machines well, and glues, finishes, and turns well. Beech also responds superbly to steam-bending. It does, however, have a large amount of movement in service, so movement and wood stability must be taken into account.
If you go back to reply #11 where i mentioned a quote (from memory way before i was 39/ever for the first time) from al old time carpenter on a job i was on about 100 years or so ago."Aye, I wouldn't use beech fer anything. It just follows the sun with all its twistin'." I also qualified that i have never used beech for anything but fire wood, so I am not an authority beyond what i have been told. all other accounts within this thread seem to indicate it is quid stable. JMB seems to think poplar is mrs stable. I have to gee with his observation in that i have used poplar (Tulip poplar) for projects where I want stability as the primary quality. I have never used over sized dado or allowed extra spacing when using tulip where I would have made allowances for expansion and contraction if using other woods. I have not used tulip for any of my larger projects where i felt i had to allow for expansion no matter what wood i used.
That is just my thought on the matter and much of what I think I know is not from a lot of experience but more from info here on the fog (discounting my own entries) and from builders and carpenters i have known in the past (some even since i turned 39 [wink])
Tinker
. I think in Europe and UK, people have had longer period of time to realize the finality of logging and have been taking care of their trees for hundreds of years, going back to long before there was ever a USA. Here, in US, we have, proportionally, only just begun to realize the value of our forests and the finality of our trees as a valuable, but dwindling source of lumber. We are only just beginning to take care of that valuable resource. Perhaps, it is more in the way we care for our trees that indicates the stability of such wood as beeches, and perhaps othe woods that we thing has a certain instability. A straight log will harvest straight lumber. A twisted or curved log will forever produce lumber that will want to twist into its original state of growth.
