“Wood” You Know The Difference?

When it comes to choosing a pool table, one of the first things you notice is the wood type or grain pattern. Each species of wood offers a distinct grain pattern and each comes with it’s own pros and cons.

Maple Wood Species: By far our most popular choice. The grain pattern is subtle and most if not all finishes look good on Maple wood. The wood tends to be lighter and more uniform in colour and appearance. Olhausen Billiards uses North American lumbered Maple for its line of Signature and Select Series pool tables. The wood that Olhausen Billiards uses hails from the Northeastern States – that climate makes the difference. The colder winters here in North American slow down the growth of the trees leading to a harder, more compact and tighter grain. In terms of building a pool table, the harder the wood and the tighter the grain, the better it will hold not only the finish applied but also the detail in the carving of the designs. Many pros for this wood species, can’t think of any cons!

Oak Wood Species: A popular choice for lighter finishes or mission style pool tables such as the Coronado or Monterey. The Augusta pool table is another one that really lends itself to the Oak wood species (although it also looks great in solid Maple as well). Oak wood offers a more distinct grain pattern and is a hard wood as well. I will mention that you should try and only choose Oak wood species if you already have Oak in the room where your pool table is going. To introduce another wood type with a grain pattern as unique as Oak would be a risky decor move. Better to stick with either Maple or Poplar which are more subtle.

Poplar Wood Species: Available on all Portland Series pool tables by Olhausen Billiards. Poplar wood is still considered a hard wood, it just isn’t as expensive as either Oak or Maple. As well, the grain pattern is more distinct on Poplar than on Maple, but not as distinct as on Oak. This won’t make much of a difference if you choose a darker finish or for example the Blackhawk pool table by Olhausen Billiards. In that case you won’t even see the grain pattern!

Veneer Wood: This option is slowly being phased out by Olhausen Billiards. The process is to use a plywood or MDF backing and apply 1/2 inch to a full inch of solid wood on the outside to make the table look like a solid wood table. Of course it can be finished in the same way any solid wood table can, but you give up on the design of the table as Veneer tables tend to be much plainer. A Veneer wood option is usually used on less expensive pool tables and won’t really offer anything as far as carving designs. In most cases Veneer pool tables can be made in either solid Maple, Oak or Poplar with only a small upgrade price.

Specialty Wood Species: Olhausen Billiards offers a wide selection of exotic wood species. You can choose either a top rail option in an exotic wood such as Birdseye Maple or Bubbinga or you could have your entire pool table made out of an exotic wood species such as Zebra Wood. Each exotic wood species offers its own unique and distinctive grain pattern and can be a real showstopper in your game room! If you can dream it, Olhausen Billiards can make it and source the wood species you desire!

So there you have it. There are many options out there when choosing to purchase a pool table. One of the most important aspects is to make sure that the wood species a manufacturer uses can be relied on not to chip, bubble, crack, warp, come unglued or have the finish wear off. You want to make sure that the wood species used was purchased from a part of the world that allows for slow growth trees to allow for a tighter grain pattern and lower moisture content. This will ensure that for the lifetime of your pool table, it will look the same as the day you bought it!