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Ash: less famous, so less expensive, than oak
Ash is a hardwood timber that often bears a close resemblance to oak, depending upon how it has been cut and finished.  The timber is not unattractive and can be used to good effect for cabinet furniture such as an ash coffee table, but it has not traditionally been widely used for furniture making.  Historically it is oak that has been favoured for furniture making and items made from this timber generally attract higher prices.  To those with little knowledge of timber, ash is thought of as being somehow inferior but this is not the case: both oak and ash have excellent albeit slightly different qualities.   

A notable quality of ash timber is that it is shock resistant.  It can tolerate vibration or movement without splitting apart or cracking as easily as some other timbers (willow, for example, is notorious for splitting).  It is this characteristic of the timber that meant it was traditionally used for making the wheel spokes for wagons and handles for tools such as hammers and axes.  In rural areas, ash was always popular as a source of fuel because it can be burnt ‘green’ without seasoning or drying – other timbers should, ideally, be left for a year to dry before being used.

Ash had always been a favoured timber for coachbuilders and the invention of mechanised transport saw ash being used to make the coachwork for railway carriages, lorry cabs and car bodies.  It is a testament to its qualities that the British car manufacturer Morgan, even today, still uses ash frames to make the bodywork for its range of classic sports cars – surely the ultimate in recyclable manufacturing.  How did this remarkable timber end up being used for the making of furniture – particularly ash coffee tables?   

However, should you wish to consider oak, we do have a wonderful range of oak sideboards that may interest you, to go in the same room as your ash coffee table.

Ash coffee table under false colours
Furniture made of oak has undergone renewed popularity during recent years.  This has been due in part to a move away from dark oak colours and a rediscovery of more natural, lighter-coloured, finishes and in part due to new supplies of oak timber sourced from North America, China and the Far East.  This rise in popularity has not been without its consequences and as supplies struggle to cope with demand alternative hardwood timbers have been considered, one of which is ash.  Due to the similarities in their appearance, some furniture supplied from China was being sold labelled as oak because this is its local name, even though the timber was actually from the Fraxinus or ash family of trees.   

Here at Right Price Furniture, we try to ensure that all our furniture of the genus Fraxinus is correctly described as ash, including all our ash coffee tables.  It may be thought that any other course of action would constitute a deliberately underhand practice intended to mislead customers but, in fairness, this is not always the case.  The ease with which an innocent mistake can arise is best illustrated by considering the mountain ash or rowan tree.   

Mountain ash has a very similar leaf pattern to that of the ash tree.  The trees are both called ash so, if they look the same and have the same name then logic suggests they are both of the same species BUT such a conclusion would be a mistake, as mountain ash is from the Sorbus family and is actually more closely related to apple and hawthorn than it is to ash.  If Britain were still to be involved in furniture making on a large scale it is easy to see how confusion could arise between an ash coffee table and a mountain ash version.   When it comes to an ash coffee table sourced from the Far East, it is more likely to be (incorrectly) described as oak than it is as rowan or mountain ash…!!

The contrast between Ash and Oak
When converted into planks; both oak and ash can look very similar and may often be confused.  But oak timber has a radial as well as a regular grain, meaning that looking at the end of a trunk will show both the circles of annual growth and a series of wavy ‘spokes’ emanating outwards from the heart of the tree.  These are the medullary rays and they are not present in ash.  When oak is sawn so that the grain appears as lines running the length of the plank, the medullary rays will show as a series of light or silvery flecks almost at right angles to the normal grain.