Ash

Also called: european ash, american ash, olive ash, fraxinus

Ash is a hardwood valued above all for the combination of strength and spring in its timber: it takes sudden knocks and shocks without splintering or breaking, rather than resisting them through sheer stiffness. European ash is pale, almost white in the grain, and Holtzapffel (1846) rated it as tougher and more elastic than any other British timber.

Appearance and grading

European ash (Fraxinus excelsior) is a distinct species from American ash, though both belong to the same genus. In the log, the palest and whitest ash was the most prized, sold on for bedroom furniture and carriage panelling; the darker, inferior wood was kept for carcase work, the plain box structure built inside a piece of furniture, and for ordinary drawers, since the finest white ash was never put to that use. A wheelwright's shop cutting cart shafts, the pair of wooden poles connecting a horse to a cart, known in the trade as "sharps", normally reached for tapering lengths of ash plank, but Sturt (1923) recorded that "oak would do very well for this use, or even good elm, if some length or thickness or curve not prepared for in ash happened to be wanted."

Working properties

Ash combines high strength with strong resistance to shock and a straight grain, and it does not splinter readily, which is why it was chosen for chopping blocks and workbench tops that get washed often, and for billiard cues and oars, where the same resistance to splintering matters. Its elasticity is also a limit rather than only a virtue: Jones (1920) held that "its flexibility unfits it for architectural work," meaning it bends too readily to hold its shape as a structural building timber. Species vary in strength too: American white ash is the standard the other American ashes are judged against, Oregon ash is somewhat weaker though used for similar purposes on the west coast of the United States, and Blue Ash, native to the central United States, was rated by Jones (1920) as possibly the finest of the other American species, though only as a hedged guess.

Uses

In nineteenth-century Britain, ash went into machine frames, wheeled-carriage parts, farm tools, wheel felloes, the curved sections that make up the rim of a wooden wheel, and the parts of furniture likely to take a sudden knock. American white ash is worked chiefly into oars, non-striking tool handles, baseball bats and other sporting goods, and the same strength and straight grain still suit it to impact-tool handles, athletic gear, furniture and general indoor woodwork. One research trial also found that ash, alongside beech, birch and poplar, showed good potential for cross-laminated timber, large structural panels built up from glued, cross-oriented layers of board, though this remains a research finding rather than settled trade practice.