On 01/10/2016 9:59 PM, Martin Eastburn wrote:
....

Being a cone bearing tree doesn't make it a softwood. ...

Ah, there is confusion. Being a "softwood" doesn't (necessarily) make
it a "soft" wood. There's a distinct difference between the two; the
former is a noun describing the broad taxonomic classification to which
a given species belongs whereas the other is a combination of adjective
applied to the noun describing the property of the particular species.

Again I refer you to the FPL tome, this time Chapters 2 and 5--

Classification of primary species by the broad taxonomy to which they
belong--

Table 2€“1. Major resources of U.S. woods according to region

Western Northern and Appalachian Southern

Hardwoods
Alder, red Ash Ash
Ash, Oregon Aspen Basswood
Aspen Basswood Beech
Birch, paper Beech Butternut
Cottonwood Birch Cottonwood
Maple, bigleaf Buckeye Elm
Oak, California black Butternut Hackberry
Oak, Oregon white Cherry Hickory
Tanoak Cottonwood Honeylocust
Elm Locust, black
Hackberry Magnolia
Hickory Maple, soft
Honeylocust Oak, red and white
Locust, black Sassafras
Maple, hard Sweetgum
Maple, soft Sycamore
Oak, red and white Tupelo
Sycamore Walnut
Walnut Willow
Yellow-poplar Yellow-poplar

Softwoods
Douglas-fir Cedar, northern white Baldcypress
Fir, western Fir, balsam Cedar, Atlantic white
Hemlock, western Hemlock, eastern Fir, Fraser
and mountain Pine, eastern white Pine, southern
Incense-cedar Pine, Jack Redcedar, eastern
Larch, western Pine, red
Pine, lodgepole Redcedar, eastern
Pine, ponderosa Spruce, eastern
Pine, sugar Tamarack
Pine, western white
Port-Orford-cedar
Redcedar, western
Redwood
Spruce, Engelmann
Spruce, Sitka
Yellow-cedar

Measured mechanical properties for some selected species for comparison.
Note: "Hardness" here is the modified Janka compression test which is
measured by the load required to embed a roughly half-inch (0.444")
diameter ball to one-half its diameter depth.

Table 5€“3b. Strength properties of some commercially important woods
grown in the United States

Static bending

Modulus
of Side
Common species Moisture Specific elasticity hardness
names content gravity (xE6lbf in€“2) (lbf)

Hardwoods

Ash
Black Green 0.45 1.04 520
12% 0.49 1.60 850
White Green 0.55 1.44 960
12% 0.60 1.74 1320
Aspen
Quaking Green 0.35 0.86 300
12% 0.38 1.18 350
Beech, American Green 0.56 1.38 859
12% 0.64 1.72 1300
Cherry, black Green 0.47 1.31 600
12% 0.50 1.49 950
Locust, black
Green 0.66 1.85 1570
12% 0.69 2.05 1700
Yellow-poplar Green 0.40 1.22 440
12% 0.42 1.58 540

Softwoods
Cedar
Eastern red Green 0.44 0.65 650
12% 0.47 0.88 €”
Western red Green 0.31 0.94 260
12% 0.32 1.11 350
Douglas-fir
Coast Green 0.45 1.56 500
12% 0.48 1.95 710
Interior South Green 0.43 1.16 360
12% 0.46 1.49 510
Pine
Eastern white Green 0.34 0.99 290
12% 0.35 1.24 380
Longleaf Green 0.54 1.59 590
12% 0.59 1.98 870
Ponderosa Green 0.38 1.00 320
12% 0.40 1.29 460
Redwood
Old-growth Green 0.38 1.18 410
12% 0.40 1.34 480
Young-growth Green 0.34 0.96 350
12% 0.35 1.10 420

I've picked a few of various well-known and used species from each
category with an eye to illustrating characteristics. As can be seen,
in general it's certainly true the "hardwoods" are harder than the
"softwoods" which is clearly the reason the generic classification came
to be. Much like the "annual ring" vis a vis "growth ring"
nomenclature, it's common idiomatic and not really entirely accurate but
it's so established it's what is used for commercial classification and
hence is the convention even amongst research organizations such as US
FPL to retain it for that general use.

Interestingly, one can note that while old-growth redwood is a wonderful
wood for many of its properties (not the least of which is, of course,
that there's so much clear grain owing to the size of the log), it
really isn't _that_ hard in comparison with the other structural pines
and is in fact quite soft compared to the typical SYP (of which I chose
Longleaf as representative of the classification which is again a
trade/commercial grading of several closely related species that are
essentially indistinguishable, not any single species). In comparison
to an Eastern white pine or cedar it is quite a lot harder, yes.

So, upshot is, don't take the designation of redwood as a "softwood" as
any denigration of the wood itself; it's merely the classification in
which it falls by its taxonomy and commercial classification.

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