SNIP:

It also doesn't rive well, if at all, so
sawing it's the only way to go. I tried riving it once too, I got
stories about that. 

I sent my go-forth-into-sylvan-glade note before I read Josh’s. My comment on
riving was conceptual, and based on on riving red oak (well) and old maple
(badly).

Josh’s email is based on actual experience, with actual beech. So I’d give it
more heft than mine.

I’d like to carve “screw beech use yellow birch” into the side of the inaugural
Pfeifer Patent Heavy Iron Scrub Plane, but the damned thing is made of beech and
it doesn’t carve worth a turd.