My wife wants.....

[Ken Fitzgerald]

a wooden swing for our covered patio.

I priced teak and found it unbelievably expensive and am now considering white oak.

Any other suggestions?

[Paul DeCarlo]

Ken,

How about Cypress? Inexpensive, domestic, plentiful, good outside, not bad to work with.....

-Paul

[Richard Wolf]

I have used Iroko wood as a substitute for teak. It is sometimes called "poor mans teak" or African teak. Still not real cheap, but worth the look.

Also, Afrormosia is also called, poor man teak.

[Ron Jones near Indy]

Ipe would last forever. It might be a little difficult to find and/or work for that purpose.

[Greg Portland]

Ipe would last forever. It might be a little difficult to find and/or work for that purpose.

Ipe is very common @ our local decking supply. Note that it will turn silver/gray after UV exposure unless it's finished.

[Van Huskey]

I am a cypress fan, then again I am looking out my window at them as I type. I would absolutely use it but it is very cheap here because it is everywhere in LA.

[Jack Wilson50]

I have made several adirondack chairs out of cypress, it is very easy to mill.

[Roy Harding]

I'm partial to red cedar for outdoor furniture. It weathers well, either unfinished and being allowed to grey over time, or it can be finished with a wide variety of finishes

Then again - it grows like a weed around where I live and is cheap like borsch - that may have influenced my tastes over the years.

[Sam Murdoch]

White oak - a very good choice as are most of the other suggestions above - EXCEPT - I have used cypress on one project (only one and it is not a local lumber so my experience is tainted - I defer to others who have good things to say about it) here in Maine that required many many hundreds board feet of this stuff. It was a very stringy lumber. Long strips of grain would flake off the edges or worst drive themselves in to your hands while sanding. Whole faces would come apart. We did get some beautiful lumber for the project and some that I have used in my own house, but there was lots of waste. Could have been just a few seriously wind shaken trees in the mix, but I have been spooked off of cypress since. Just to add to the conversation .

[Damon Stathatos]

All of the suggestions above are good ones. Ipe would probably the best choice but it's (real) heavy.

If I started a thread 'My Wife Wants...'

My post would be maxed out, word-wise or character-wise, and I would never be able to actually post it.

[Van Huskey]

Sounds like "hurricane" trees to me... the local guys tend to ship them out of the area since so much of it is used here for cabinets and the like users know how cypress should act.

There are tons of good woods and Damon probably could think of 100 exotics that would be excellent. Down here it would be cypress as I mentioned because it is cheap, works well outdoors and everyone here knows it or teak if they wanna spend the cash.

[Bill Huber]

I have 6 Adirondack chairs made from cypress that have been outside for the last 4 years and one redwood. Looking at the chairs now they are sliver gray and it is hard to tell the cypress from the redwood.
I find cypress very easy to work with, it works just about like pine.

This is one of the cypress chairs when it was first built, after 4 years outside it still looks the same only now it is sliver gray.

104147459.LUnsTs8Q.PA055671.jpg

[Phil Thien]

If you're going to use a clear finish (not paint), I think the white oak would look pretty darn nice.

[Phil Erup]

a wooden swing for our covered patio.

I priced teak and found it unbelievably expensive and am now considering white oak.

Ken,

I hardly ever post 'cause so many others are way more experienced. In this case, my son & his family live in Lewiston... he is building a garden arbor, he went to the local lumber yard for advice and was told that given the climate there douglas fir would last. His is in an exposed location, under a covered patio I think doug fir would outlast me.

maybe I'll meet you someday, planning to retire there in a couple of years.

dan

[Gary Max]

Ken I have a antique White Oak swing that was made back in the early 1950's. Unless you are just wanting to spend a bunch of money oak would be a good way to go.
SWMBO had to wait 5 years before I built hers out of Eastern Red Cedar.