Hackberry is a hardwood, so the hackberry hardwood or softwood debate has a simple answer. Here is where you might trip up. You pick up a board, press a thumbnail into the surface, and watch the wood dent with almost no effort. So you figure the tree must be a softwood. That soft, easy-to-mark feel is right where your confusion starts. But hackberry wood stays in the hardwood group no matter how fast the board dents. The label has nothing to do with how the wood feels in your hand.
The terms hardwood and softwood describe the type of tree, not how dense or tough the wood turns out. You get hardwoods from broadleaf trees that drop leaves each fall. You get softwoods from conifers, the ones with needles and cones, like pine, spruce, and cedar. Hackberry is a broadleaf deciduous tree, so the wood lands in the hardwood camp by simple botany. You can find hackberry as soft as butter and the answer still does not change. Balsa proves the point. Balsa ranks as one of the softest woods around, yet you still call the wood a hardwood. That is the core of the hackberry hardwood or softwood puzzle: the label tracks the tree, not your thumbnail.
Here is the trait that fuels the mix-ups. Hackberry runs heavy yet soft at the same time. The wood stays weak and shows up in a pale yellow shade with a light, plain grain. Leave hackberry out in the weather and the wood decays fast, so you get rot quicker than with many other hardwoods. On the plus side, hackberry bends well under steam. That is why old shops shaped the wood into curved chair backs and bent parts. That easy bending made hackberry handy for any part that needed a gentle curve. For generations, people built furniture, crates, fence posts, and tool handles from the wood.
That heavy-yet-soft combo throws a lot of folks. Weight often hints at a dense, tough wood, but hackberry breaks your expectations. You feel real heft when you lift a plank, yet the fibers give way under light pressure. The grain sands down smooth and takes stain and paint with no fuss. Turners love that mix, since the weight steadies your blank while the soft fiber peels off in long ribbons. So you work the wood clean on a bench even though hackberry will never win a hardness contest.
So is hackberry wood strong? Not by much. Hackberry sits near the bottom of the hardwood pack for strength, and the wood splits and cracks under a heavy load. You would not pick hackberry for a load-bearing beam or a deck that carries weight all day. Your best results come from the steam-bending and the clean way the wood turns on a lathe. Judge hackberry on those terms and you get a wood that holds up.
Keep hackberry dry and indoors. Hackberry rots fast in damp ground, so a treated wood beats the pale timber for any outdoor post or rail.
For real jobs, you can lean on hackberry as firewood and as stock for turning and light furniture. Hackberry burns hot and splits clean once you dry the wood out well. On the lathe you get a smooth cut and a nice finish for bowls, pens, and small pieces. Let a green log sit a while and you might see spalting, those fine gray and black lines that turners prize. Around the shop, hackberry makes fair furniture that does not face hard use or moisture. Match the wood to gentle work and you get a cheap, easy-working choice.
Skip hackberry where you need muscle or rot resistance, and reach for oak, hickory, or a treated softwood instead. Save your hackberry for the stove, the lathe, and indoor projects that stay dry. Buy the wood cheap, since hackberry seldom costs much at a local mill. Work with the strengths you have, and this pale, soft hardwood pays you back in easy cutting and warm heat.
Read the full article: Hackberry Tree: Identification, Care & Facts
