We are pleased to announce that we have found a local source of premium yellow birch (Betulla alleghaniensis) which we will be using for our planes as we move forward.
Yellow birch (not to be confused with paper birch) is similar in many ways to sugar maple (Acer saccharum). Birch is an ideal wood for toolmaking – it is stable, hard, and evenly dense (it has been used for North American-made hand planes for ages – the first documented American planemaker, Deacon Francis Nicholson, used yellow birch for his planes). Quartersawn birch is quite pretty too, especially when it’s figured! Maybe you’ll be lucky enough to get your planes in figured birch (we cannot guarantee all the quartersawn birch will look this way).
Figured Quartersawn Birch
We are pleased to have found a local supplier with a good supply that has been felled, milled, air-dried and well-seasoned locally by an independent sawyer with over 35 years of experience. Yes, we are very excited about having yellow birch!
For our first two production runs of moulding planes, we used 8/4 quartersawn, kiln-dried cherry from the Eastern coast of the U.S. If you already have cherry planes, we will continue to make new sizes of planes in cherry by request.
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