Working with wood poses a number of challenges: it has its own characteristics that must be worked with rather than against and it is easy to fall into the trap of letting the wood do all the work (that is, allowing the inherent beauty of highly figured or character-wood to disguise poor design and craftsmanship)

I favour using British or temperate hardwoods such as sycamore, oak and ash; sycamore for its smooth texture, ability to take fine detail and affinity for colour; oak and ash for their more rugged qualities and open grain that make them so suitable for scorching, bleaching, liming and texturing.  When available I also use reclaimed or recycled woods such as iroko, mahogany, saplele, teak and wenge.