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Thanks James! I have a video project where I embrace and highlight the sapwood called "Fine Woodworking Hallway Cabinet From Solid Walnut". Just wanted to mention that to avoid the hate mail. 😉

That credenza is stunning, but what makes it look so good isn't just the contrast between sapwood and heartwood, but the layout of the bookmatched slabs. Beautiful work!

I actually bought a half a pallet of discarded Walnut boards, from a very high end designer, because of the sapwood, for $50.00! I love the look of most of the boards and now I know how and when to use them! Thank you James. You bring so much clarity to the not necessarily obvious ...

One thing about sapwood to think about in a lot of species is that it is much more vulnerable to rot and insect attack. This is especially true with air-dried wood, where the bugs and any infections haven't been killed by the kiln process. In a climate controlled modern home, a little clean sapwood isn't likely to be a problem. But on a porch or deck or whatever, the sapwood is going to attract bugs, powder post beetle, that king of thing, and with significant humidity also any dormant or ambient fungus.

Big Hickory is infiltrating the woodworking scene.

Stumpy; I've been watching your "channel" for longer than I care to say. This is probably one of the most informative vids I've seen in quite a while. I can't say I've learned anything NEW but it did reinforce many things I've learned over the years. I've found that when you expound on a subject you have done a lot of research to bring the big picture to audience! Thank you and have a drink ... you deserve it!

I like the combination of sapwood and heartwood. However, at times, using only one or the other is appropriate for a project. Just because you cut the sapwood off doesn't mean you are going to throw it away - you may simply use it on a separate project. Likewise, there is the pith that may also have to be worked around ... would have been good to mention this in your video since you seemed to say all the wood in the center of the tree is stable and, while the actual sapwood is stable, pith is not. Still, really good video and thanks for telling people sapwood is good and useable.

I have never heard a better explanation of the differences between the heartwood and the sapwood. And your demonstration of using heartwood and sapwood was spot on. Thank you for sharing. Have a great day and stay safe.🙂🙂

I totally agree with you. Using sapwood as a feature is very appealing if used correctly.

I love watching all these you tube woodworking channels, “I’ll just walk over to my scrap wood pile and grab 10 board feet of 8/4 walnut.”

Clear, succinct, excellent information, as always. James you're a fantastic educator.

What I hear you saying is "the beauty and usefulness of sapwood is in the eye of the woodworker", which I think is a great take. It's all about the application and what you want out of the piece. Love to see both your work and David's, and nice to see people having a rational discussion on the interwebs. Thanks for sharing!

i must say, that sapwood at 1:04 looks great indeed.. ;)

You are so totally right James about the various grain configurations being eye appealing when well balanced in a project.👍🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

You’re a good guy to make these informative videos for people to learn from. I’ve been watching these videos for quite some time just waiting for some misinformation but you’ve been consistent with accurate info and never ever in a way to just make yourself look good. You must do a lot of research and hands on testing to get there. Keep it up my friend, it’s a good look.

I hope you do not stop making these sort videos ,they are so helpful. Thanks again Julien

I learn so much from you, James. Note to self: spend more time in your workshop 🌞

Thanks for the education! I’m relatively new to woodworking, and this content really helps!

As always, such an interesting subject and I have again learnt a lot. Thank you James.

Great lesson James. Thanks for sharing it.

I use sapwood in a fair amount of my projects, - apple has wonderful sapwood to heartwood contrast, as does English and black walnut. The only problem is that there are a lot of insects that love munching on it! These are logs that I've milled and all of them have some degree of worm holes. I don't worry about them much - fill 'em in with CA glue or epoxy and call it character. One cutting board I made had not one but two unlucky larva encased in epoxy and plain to see.

Good one Stump! Always learn something, stay safe!

I needed this video! Thanks a million!!!

Man your videos are always super helpful. I’ve learned some really valuable stuff from your channel. Thanks for putting out such great content, especially the way you convey information. It’s very easy to take in and follow. I really loved your video about what to look for in a bandsaw, that was extremely helpful when I was feeling very overwhelmed. Thanks again.

One thing that I always find remarkable is the depth of knowledge and expertise in a subject. I'm a serial hobbyist, from automotives, firearms, woodworking, metal working, landscaping, home owning (so plumbing, roofing, electrical etc) and so on. I know enough to get by, most of the time. But it blows my mind how deep the well of knowledge goes in every single field. Most the channels I follow expose me to those depths and even if I can't possibly absorb them all it's a pleasure to try. Thanks for your videos, sharing your passion and knowledge with us.

Great videos! I always learn something. Thanks. I especially appreciate the quality of the writing and presentation in general. Also, thanks for making me aware of some of the smaller tool suppliers. Bridge City and Taylor are excellent.

Wow! thank you soooo much for this video. It made me understand better and deeper how to work with wood.

Learn so much from this channel. Thank you!

James! Your channel is the only one I immediately "like" before even watching! And then I watch each video! Keep up the great work!

Very helpful review. Thanks for making us better - and more knowledgeable makers.

Always thought provoking, I learn every time I watch one of your videos. Thank you

this video has provided me some excellent advice. Thank you

Thanks for the tips, I always learn something from your videos.

One of your best and most informative. Thanks

Thanks, an interesting, thought provoking and worthwhile discussion !

Great advise, thank you so much!

Once again, useful information. Thank you.

You continue to amaze me with your knowledge... nice job

Great vid, thanks for helping me understand more

Thank You! Useful information!

Very interesting information James, thanks for sharing with us. Fred.

Very thoughtful and realistic.

Another great video full of great insights and information as always so many great tips thanks for always educating us

Great video! I have specifically chosen lumber with a mix of heartwood and sapwood for some projects because I was looking for that light and dark appearance. I built a top for a kitchen stand I built out of hickory with lots of sapwood and just few runs of the heartwood to get the look my wife wanted. The only downside is that I have had to strip the clear finish off, lightly sand it and refinish it to keep the look she wants since the color goes off on the sapwood pretty quickly. That's only a few hours of work so it's not a big deal. Keep up the great videos!!!!

Thank you for sharing this. Sapwood does look awesome. Everyone stay warm, safe, happy and healthy. From Henrico County Virginia

Always an education Always thankful

Cool advice. Cheers.

Thanks that was good info. 👍

Great insights.

Love your work 👍

we saw a sample of hickory cabinets when we were redoing the kitchen, and didn't look any further than that. love the contrast.

A good video. A fair evaluation of sapwood and its use.

Those examples are gorgeous! Do you have any suggestions on further research and educational material for designing furniture with sapwood?

Great explanation thanks James. Wow…… where was I when you hit 800k? Congrats.

Great video , thanks

Thanks for the education. 😊

Great presentation!

Anyone who have ever made a longbow from scratch will know the importance and value of the sap layer :) -and the drying process (through many steps) of the wood before it is ready to be used.

I had an acoustic guitar with a streak of sapwood mixed with the darker wood on the side panels. I never had a problem with the guitar and I got a lot of comments about the beauty of the guitar. I am a believer is using sap wood in many projects.

Thanks for all the info, James! 😊 I love Dave's work! Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊

I have always utilized almost all of a board. I save cutoffs and such. The cutoffs are good for small projects and shop tools. My entire shop, from the out feed table of the saw to my joiners bench are made of mahogany, maple, walnut etc. and all from leftovers of other projects.

Very educational..

Very informative sir thanks

Very interesting. This concept is really pronounced with yew and the sapwood is used on the outside of traditional longbows for its elastic properties. It behaves and cuts completely differently to the heartwood. Great video as always.

Great info

2:30 An exception to this is maple, where it's typically the sapwood that's used.

Love David's channel, great sense of humor and fun projects. Thanks for the vid Stumpy!

I work at a lumber mill and all this information seems great, but only to about half of the species that we run. Oaks and hickory may have more demand for the heartwood, but for species like maple and birch we have a much higher demand for the sapwood and we send a lot of heartwood to be made into pallets.

Those sapwood drawers are really impressive. Sapwood gets a big thumbs up from me.

Another use: when it doesn't show or will be painted. Western Redcedar is popular for building fences and decks and the like, but a friend of mine bought sapwood boards -- part or all yellow colored -- for use in trim pieces on the outside of the house. He said it lasts 50 year or more (unlike what he was replacing) and is much cheaper than the clear heart stuff used for staining projects. Cedar fence pickets are something of a commodity around here, but I think if they were available in non-clear-heart they could be cheaper, filling a gap between pine (doesn't last) and cedar, when the fence will be painted.

This was helpful.

Interesting video ! It would have been nice to have some examples of the joinery that allows this kind of separate movement on the cabinet, though :)

"Sponsored by Big Hickory" was pretty funny.

I love using sap wood. I make wall lights with it and they turn out really nice because of it.

If you saw my scrap bin you would never accuse me of wasting wood. I can make entire projects out of it

Love sapwood. Especially in Olive wood.

I have a bin that I throw my scrap wood into for other smaller projects later on. I personally save the sapwood for power carving; I find that the blotching you get tends to actually look good in small projects 😁

another cool informative video

I actually use a metric pantload of OSB in my small projects, boxes for example, because it makes a great woodland camo look. Even on jewellery boxes, 4 edges of finger jointed oak with two inset OSB faces makes a very interesting look. Once made, I stain it, chamfer all edges for contrast, split it, finish it, and add hardware.

I love using boards with sap wood in it! Well for alot of projects

I mainly make guitars in my spare time and sapwood can make for a really striking aesthetic on guitar tops. I noticed at my local timber shop, they had lots of nice slabs of wood with a mix of heartwood and sapwood, it seems to be getting very popular for using as tops for kitchen counters and tables, especially with the live edges

I had a beautiful few pieces of walnut that I used for table legs on a project. There were large swatches of sapwood on them and they came out beautifully. AFAIK - I sold the piece at about a year old over a year ago - it is still in perfect condition. BUT I agree, I would be leery of using sapwood as the entirety of the structural members.

This is the best video you've put out in a while, not saying the others aren't good, but this one is really great!

Great video

Good stuff!

I go out of my way looking for sap wood. Making gun grips , sap wood allows for a beautiful contrast. My Honduran rosewood burl grips are dark burgundy with a white sap wood accent. Just stunning.

i use them together quite often. depends on what the wood tells me what it wants to look like of course.

Another interesting tidbit with walnut (perhaps other woods too), is that commercial kilns steam dry the wood which darkens the sapwood and makes it look more like heartwood (at least initially). This also strips out much of the natural coloring in walnut (lovely red and purple tones) and, in my opinion at least, makes it look like crap. I would rather embrace the light sapwood or mill my boards to avoid it than deal with the dull coloring that commercially dried walnut produces. I tend to seak out small, local mills that don't steam dry for this reason.

👍. Greetings to you and your family. Great video and good to learn from you.

So if I rive boards out of a log, I might not need to discard the sapwood as I've read.

Great video. Sapwood does have some other attributes.. The cell walls on the outer grown rings in temperate regions are thicker, as the wood must support the growing height of the tree. This is also a reason for the different shrink, swell rate within a given board. Trees have their own wisdom, they know how tall they are, and what they need to do to hold themselves up. And this is not easily observable in a board.

I made a table out of hickory, which included some sapwood. I kept as much as I could because it made a great contrast that I think looks pretty neat. Also, if your lumberyard offers to dress your hickory, you should say yes. Hard stuff.

At my workplace we use a lot of white oak, but also cherry and walnut, the problem with sapwood is it never takes the stain the same as the rest of the board and always looks strange and out of place among the rest. We build $3 million pipe organs and they have to look right everywhere, these days everyone and their car has a camera and nobody needs some tourist or visitor taking photos of your finished work and uploading it to social media where those "in the know" will immediately start picking it apart with sentiments like "I can't believe they used that ugly board THERE!!" and "look at that cheap ass plywood they used, they must have bought it at Home Depot!!" On a $3 million instrument, cutting away $50 worth of sapwood from a couple of boards doesn't matter, not when the shop labor rate is like $135 an hour

Where I live (the far north of england along the scottish border), wood is incredibly difficult to source and ridiculously expensive, I do everything I can to save wasting wood.

Not only sapwood is lighter tone, has lesser resistance and different expansion, but it's also more yummy to misc pests and friendly to rot, hence the restrictions to its use. Nonetheless it can be of great interest in some circumstances 😉

All the nice wood gets shipped to Japan or China from around here all we have is pine . You have a blessed one .

Gee I thought you were gonna talk about the guys CNCing parts out of the middle of a panel with 6 inches between parts

I like your measured style.

Wow this is so amazing, I had no idea only the outer rim of a hard wood tree is alive, does that apply to spruce as well?