Material - Wood

Looking into the most commonly used material for the making of furniture

Wood

These are the few popular wood types, they are mainly 2 kinds which are hardwood & softwood.

what actually distinguish softwood and hardwood? how are they different in quality/any other reason that makes one wood more better from the other?

the difference between hardwood and softwood does not necessarily reflect their “hardness”, even though most hardwood are tougher than softwood. The wood types are categorize this way because hardwood generally means wood that are obtain from deciduous trees while softwood are from coniferous trees.

hardwood trees are broad leaved and are trees that reproduce seeds through fruit or hard coverings like nuts. hardwood takes a longer time to grow and reproduce compare to softwood. as hardwood trees are affected by seasons, and rely on animals and insects to spread its seeds for reproduction. some of the well known hardwoods are maple, balsa, oak, elm, mahogany, and poplar etc.

softwood trees are evergreen and have needle-like leaves. the seeds have no coverings, and are release directly from the trees once mature, the wind then spread it over a wide area. hence having the advantage of a much faster reproduction than hardwood trees.
It is suggested that softwood made up eighty percent of the world’s timber production. some of the well known softwood are pine, spruce, cedar, fir, larch etc.

Comparing both softwood and hardwood in terms of physical attributes.hardwood are mainly used for furnitures and flooring. hardwood has usually higher density therefore it is harder and heavier.softwood are mainly used for furnitures, wood-wares for buildings. softwood are less dense therefore less durable and much lighter compared to hardwood.

	Hardwood	Softwood
Colour	Dark	Light
Annular ring	Not Distinct	Distinct
Weight	Heavy	Light
Strength	Strong in compression, tension and shear(strong along and across the grains)	Strong in tension but weak in shear(strong along the grains)
Structure	Non - resinous and close grained	Resinous and splits easy
Fire Resistance	Good	Poor
Conversion	Difficult	Easy

A simple comparison chart taken from here

looking at this comparison chart, i guessed it is all acceptable to assume that furniture made from most hardwood types will definitely last longer than softwood types in most if not all situations. Even though softwood are more prone to dents and scratches, there are still many reasons why people still using them.