Green Ash — Density, Movement, Workability & Cost

Every Fender catalog from the 1950s onward that lists a "swamp ash" body is very likely describing green ash (Fraxinus pennsylvanica), not the true white ash its name implies. Bottomland-grown green ash runs light and porous enough to earn the nickname, and guitar builders have sorted logs by weight for that reason for seventy years.

Nearly white ash's twin, with more variability

Green ash shares white ash's ring-porous structure and its excellent bending behaviour, but the numbers move around more from tree to tree — a swampy bottomland log can come in noticeably lighter than an upland one, even though both carry the species name. At 40 lb/ft³ and 1,200 lbf on the Janka scale it sits just under white ash's 42 lb/ft³ and 1,320 lbf, close enough that the two are sold interchangeably in most yards and only separated when a buyer specifically wants the lighter "swamp ash" material for an instrument body.

Movement, and what emerald ash borer changed about supply

Tangential shrinkage of 7.1% against a radial figure of 4.6% gives a tangential:radial ratio of 1.5 — comfortably stable, similar to black walnut's well-behaved 1.4. Glue up a 14"-wide guitar-body blank from two boards and drop it from a 10% to a 6% moisture-content reading, and green ash's own tangential coefficient predicts a loss of about 0.133" (3.4mm) across the width — plug in your own blank size on the wood movement calculator to check a different one. That same body blank, 1.75" thick and 20" long, comes in around 11.3 lb at green ash's milled density, per the wood weight calculator. Emerald ash borer has killed the overwhelming majority of standing ash across its native range since the 2000s, which means most green ash reaching a mill today is salvage from dead or dying trees rather than a managed harvest — buy from a supplier who checks moisture content carefully, since borer-killed timber can season unevenly.

Working it, gluing it, finishing it

Reliable with PVA or epoxy, nothing special required — the coarse open pores that define ring-porous woods bond well once the surface is clean. Finishing is where ash rewards patience: a grain filler is genuinely the difference between an average result and a good one on the open pore structure, and blonde or translucent finishes suit the wood's pale colour better than a heavy pigment stain would. The one caveat worth repeating from the workability notes: guitar builders sort by weight precisely because two boards of identical species and dimension can come off the same log pile at meaningfully different densities.

Cost, uses, and what it's not

At roughly $5.50 per board foot, green ash sits in this site's budget tier, close to red alder and cheaper than white ash in most yards, though the two are frequently priced the same when a supplier doesn't distinguish them. Electric guitar bodies, tool handles, pallets, general furniture, and interior joinery are the main markets — tool-handle buyers should note that green ash's rating as non-durable and highly susceptible to the same borer that is killing the standing resource makes it a wood in genuine transition, not a permanently reliable commodity the way it was a generation ago.

Choosing between the two ashes

If a project specifically calls for the lightest possible ash body blank, ask for swamp ash by weight rather than trusting the species label alone, since a heavy green ash board and a light white ash board can cross in density. For furniture or millwork where colour and grain read matter more than weight, white ash is the safer specify — it's the species most buyers picture when they hear "ash," and it carries a slightly higher, more consistent hardness. Where a project needs ash's bending qualities for a curved chair part or a boat frame, either species works; white oak is the other domestic hardwood with a comparable reputation for steam bending, though it moves considerably more across its width.

What people actually ask about green ash

Does buying "swamp ash" from a guitar-parts supplier guarantee a lighter body blank than ordering plain green ash from a hardwood yard? Not automatically — a guitar-parts supplier who actually sorts and weighs blanks before selling them as "swamp ash" gives a real edge over an unsorted hardwood-yard pull, but the trade name alone, without a stated weight or density, is no more reliable a guarantee than picking through green ash stock and weighing boards yourself.

Will the emerald ash borer make ash lumber disappear entirely? Standing live ash has been decimated across most of its range, but a large volume of salvage lumber from already-dead trees is still working through the supply chain, and some regions are seeing early regrowth from surviving seed sources. Expect prices to firm up over the next decade rather than the species vanishing from lumber yards immediately.

Why does my green ash board feel much lighter than the last one I bought? Density genuinely varies more in this species than in most domestic hardwoods, largely because it grows across a wide range of wet and dry sites; a lighter board is not necessarily a defect, though it may be softer and more prone to denting than a heavier one from the same species.

The shrinkage percentages above are Table 4-3 of the USDA Forest Products Laboratory's Wood Handbook (FPL-GTR-190, 2010); density and Janka hardness are The Wood Database's 12%-moisture-content measurements, sourced from that same federal handbook.