What wood for kitchen rework?

[Salty]

We are considering a kitchen upgrade soon and I was looking at using hickory. The doors would be square raised panel and the drawer fronts would be solid stock. I would be using the existing shells and veneering the ends and faceframes.
I found this thread after a search and it seems Tom was not happy with this wood and how it treated his tools.
http://www.bt3central.com/showthread...hlight=hickory

The wood would be bought in the rough and planed down by someone else's equipment so I really don't want to make things difficult.
Has anyone else worked much with hickory and had similar problems due to it being a hard wood and hard on tools?

Thanks all.

[Stan]

We have recently done 3 kitchens worth of cabinetry at work. Didn't notice any blade/knife problems having done that. I am also remodeling out kitchen in rustic hickory -- haven't had any problems relating to the hardness of the wood.

[Stan]

If you'd like to see a couple different looks with different woods, let me know.
I can whip up a couple demos for you.

snowshoe@cpu-etc.com

[JimD]

If you like the hickory I would just budget for some new knives or sharpening of the existing knives (depending on the type) as a "thank-you" to the person doing your planning. I sharpen mine before planning hardword of any type. If I forget, the planner seems to remind me. I do not think hickory will be that different from other hardwoods, I haven't worked with it so it is just an uninformed decision, however. I do know that the hardwoods I have worked with - hard and soft maple, cherry, walnut, and oak - all planned significantly harder than the softwood I've run through the planner. I couldn't really tell much difference other than hard and soft. If you used cherry instead of hickory, your cost for wood would increase by more than a couple sets of knives for most planners.

Jim

[LYU370]

Yeah, I'm thinking about refacing my kitchen cabinets in hickory as well. Currently have the old 80's style european laminate doors/drawer fronts. To try it out, I replaced the drawer fronts on a bathroom vanity, and in the process of making some doors. Didn't notice and additional wear or tear on my equipment. Actually I thought the hickory was fairly easy to work with.

[rlah]

I've been only woodworking for 8 months but we we've been lucky... I thought I should go with oak early on but decided against it... went with solid walnut for a low entertainment center, hickory/walnut floor cabinet, and curly maple telephone table... all have worked out *very* well... like I said we've been lucky. Then we decided on quarter-sawn red oak for a small end table and are very displeased with how the end-grain finished out... almost black. Comparing the end-grain of oak to the end-grain of hickory, my wife and I have almost decided we will never go back to oak and are thinking hickory holds a candle to curly maple.

I did not notice a difference in the machining of the hickory over the other woods... but I heard a worker at the hardwood supply say it was hard on tools... I'm not sure the difference is significant.

[Salty]

Thanks for all the replies.
Since the look of the hickory doors is so nice, I think we will keep on that track.
What convinced me was the look of this kitchen.
http://www.cabinetexpress.com/KITCHEN/HK-pioneer.jpg