What Kind of Birch Is Used for Cabinet Making?

Yellow Birch

• The yellow birch (Betula alleghaniensis) is the most prized of the birch species for the production of cabinets and furniture. The trunk normally reaches 24 to 30 inches in diameter and, along with the sweet birch, its wood is the heaviest, hardest and most durable. However, once logs are processed, the wood from different birch species cannot be distinguished. The appearance of the pores and grain characteristics of all birch species are similar and uniform.

Birch Quality

• In birch of high quality, the sapwood is white and wide, while the heartwood takes on a reddish color. Some cabinet and furniture makers prefer the white sapwood, but red heartwood is also widely utilized. Both yellow and sweet birch claim an average density but still are among the strongest hardwoods available to the lumber industry. Each weigh approximately 42 pounds per cubic foot.

Advantages

• Birch is used as a substitute for mahogany and walnut in the making of cabinets and furniture. The wood is further respected for its natural finish, small pores, and ability to absorb shock. It is regularly utilized in both the outer surface and inner structure of cabinetry and furniture production. Birch is easily shaped through machining although working with the wood via hand tools is more difficult. It also boasts strong nail-withdrawal resistance, a trait that contributes to the stability of a birch cabinet's structure.

Birch Range

• Yellow birch grows from Newfoundland to the Carolinas and east to Minnesota, while the native range of sweet birch begins in Maine and moves south through the Appalachians to Alabama and Georgia. Paper birch grows specifically in more northerly locales including Canada and Alaska, the Great Lakes states, and sections of Montana, Washington and Northern Idaho. Yellow birch reaches a height of between 60 and 70 feet, sweet birch grows to between 50 and 60 feet tall, and paper birch may grow as high as 70 feet.