Choosing Wood That Survives A Toddler
Hardness is the obvious quality to optimise for. It is not the useful one.
The instinct is to reach for the hardest timber available, on the logic that harder resists damage. It does, up to a point. Past that point it stops absorbing impact and starts transmitting it, and the piece fails at a joint instead of denting on a face.
A dent is a good failure. It happens where the impact happened, it stops there, and the toy carries on working. A split joint is a bad one: it is invisible until it is not, and it turns a toy into pieces without warning.
So we look for timber that gives a little. Something that takes a mark and keeps its shape, with a grain even enough that a rounded edge stays rounded rather than tearing out. That rules out a few species that look lovely on a sample board.
The other constraint is that it has to still be pleasant a year in. Wood that greys, furs up, or splinters as it dries is not a material for something a child holds every day, whatever it measures on a hardness scale.
