What woods are recommended?

A large variety of woods exist...some of these are useful for ship models (prefered woods are bold):

apple	good for planking...bends easily
balsa	TOO SOFT for ship model use! (At least on surfaces; occasionally useful for "spacers" used internally.)
bamboo	tough, easily split; used for trunnels, etc.
basswood	soft but readily available
boxwood	the best for find detail carving
clear pine	for bread-and-butter hulls
cherry	fairly common, fine grain, somewhat brittle
degama	good for masts and spars
ebony	Black! very hard and brittle, doesn't bend easily
holly	White! good for decking, carving
pear	works like cherry but brown instead of red, and not brittle.

Any wood can be stained to look like ebony using black India ink as a stain.
{John O. Kopf}

At some point you are going to substitute the relatively soft, weak wood strips supplied in the kit with very dense, close-grained exotic hardwoods like pearwood, boxwood, lancewood, and applewood. The kit producers will furnish you with basswood because it is commercially available and not very costly. Don't feel badly about upgrading or adding to the materials supplied in the kit.
{Septimus}

For historic ship modeling purposes I would recommend any woods that are hard and have a close or tight grain. I would rate boxwood, apple and pear in that category. Cherry, gum and maple are also good but not as hard as the firstthree mentioned. Basswood is a very stable wood but does not finish well. I have seen Tangyanka and have had no experience in working with it but from all appearances, I think I'll leave it alone as the other woods that I have mentioned allow an excellent color range, are easily worked and finish well.

Have you considered hornbeam, often called ironwood? It has a straight to sometimes irregular grain and has no visible figure. The texture is hard, heavy and with a compact structure. Color is silvery white. It can be worked into small delicate parts and can be carved to very sharp detail. It takes a beautiful polished finish. Price is usually less than holly or boxwood.
{Dana McCalip}

I second the recommendation for maple - rock or sugar maple. I planked the hull and deck of Kate Cory with it. It will take aqueous aniline dyes very well - glues well - is very hard - one of the hardest domestic woods. The figure will vary with the angle of the cut. It is tight grained - no open pores to fill. It is significantly harder than fruit wood or cherry. I have used sycamore (buttonwood) and do not like it -too fuzzy- prominent figure and stinks when cut. When the English write about sycamore (Underhill) they are describing a tree in the maple family I believe.
{Dean Warden}

Also check out the Nautical Research Guild's Article YOUR OWN LUMBER MILL FOR SHIP MODEL BUILDERS.
{John O. Kopf}

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