Red Birch Overview, Features & Benefits

Video Transcript

[Music] Hey everybody, Brian from Cabinet Joint here. Today we have in our shop in Gettysburg a very rare species going through. It's called red Birch. We used to do a lot of it back in the 90s, um, early 2000s, and it kind of lost favor, got very expensive. But I wanted to review this with you because it's an interesting species choice. A lot of folks with an untrained eye might think that's just Cherry that hasn't darkened yet. It does have that kind of pinkish red color, very similar graining, but it really is color fast, meaning it will not change with UV light the way Cherry does, where it darkens three or four shades. So it's a really pretty grain wood, um, takes a natural finish very, very well. If you do decide you want to stain it, it might get a little blotchy on you. So most folks who order red Birch just want that really pretty pink-red grain to shine through, and they just do a natural clear coat, either in our 10% Sheen or our 40% Sheen.

Some of the features of it you can see maybe on camera, you got some lights and darks, that's going to happen. Um, there is possibly some sapwood, which will be whiter. The interesting thing about red Birch is it's the exact same tree as Yellow Birch. So if you're on, or some people call it white birch, it's just the heartwood of a birch tree. So it doesn't yield real well, you're not going to get real wide rips because the core of a birch tree is pretty small, and that's also what drives the price up. So some folks would say, well, what is the price? Is it considered an exotic? No, it's maybe 7% more currently, uh, right now I'm talking to you in 2023, it's about 7% more than hard maple. So it's not a real stretch like Walnut or some of those more exotic woods might be that have gotten driven through the roof since COVID with lumber pricing. Red Birch is still attainable, and it's a really pretty and very different wood. We can even, through our special designs department, do what they call curly grained or, um, you see it a lot with like Maple, you get that curly grain or bird's eye kind of look, you can get that with red Birch. Um, it gets very expensive, but you can get some really interesting looks with red Birch. So anyway, something to consider, we don't hardly ever see it anymore. So when this came through the shop, we said, hey, let's just set up the camera gear and show the folks out there what this looks like. So something to think about, and you'll have a kitchen different than anybody's going to show you at Lowe's or Home Depot. A lot of places you can't even get red Birch right now. Coga is one of those folks that call it a standard species. So hope this helps, if you have any questions, your cabinet coach can get you a sample door panel, um, or a smaller block, um, whatever you want to see to give you an idea what this coloration is going to look like and how the grain works. But I think you'll be real pleased if you do. Thanks for watching.