On 13 May, 19:03, PCPaul wrote:

Over here (I'm in the UK) Beech is quite a cheap hardwood

It is very nice to work with BTW - but is useless in damp conditions.

Also the bugs love it, if you're making furniture.

It's fairly common to find "oak" furniture from between the wars made
with an oak face frame at the front, and cheaper beech for the
casework behind. Pick an old piece of that up, give it a good shake
and sometimes you can be left holding two front legs and a couple of
drawer fronts, the beech parts falling into a pile of frass!