What is the best type of wood for a wagon tongue? I have seen tongues for order online that are ash, the price of shipping is twice the cost of the tongue. We have a friend with a sawmill that volunteered to cut us one. What is the best type of wood? We can choose any of the common trees from the Midwest. Are ash and oak our best choice? What we have available will be green cut unless hackberry makes an acceptable tongue, we have a couple of those down. Thanks

I like ash best for most things. It's hard enough, but lighter weight than harder hardwoods. We whittle them up with a chain saw and draw shave out of good straight younger trees, 6-8" logs.

You may have to roll it a few times to take a bow out of it before you use it. Sometimes they will dry straight, sometimes not.

I made some ash tounges when I was using a sawmill. Made them 14 feet long, 5X5 on the butt and 3X3 on the tip. The heart was laying on one corner so they wouldn't split out. Never did get them sold.
I prefer steel for a tounge now. If they get sat on, you can put them in a press to straighen them.

We were wondering if a pipe tongue would be ok? My father in law would always take a metal tongue out of whatever he bought and replace it with wood. My husband didn't ever know why he did that and since all we were doing at the time was riding stock horses, my husband didn't ask why. Now that we have the team my fil is gone and we don't have him to ask all the questions we should have asked long ago.

I would not think that Hackberry would be safe. It is pretty brittle.

I sure can't think of a reason to remove a steel tounge and change it to wood. Can think of reasons to replace with steel. Like the time Tom wanted to run off and jumped a gate and the tounge broke and there was jagged end right in Jerry's flank area. He never got a scratch but he could have got gutted.

I remember a lot of wagons had those metal tongues with rolled iron, that was tapered. Good tongues. Once in a while I will see one of them around yet.

A man that made up wagon train rides that go cross country. he said the metal tongue had vibration that the wood tongue didn't have and caused sores on the top of the neck. I don't know just his idea.

Think that is an excuse for something else like dirty pads.