The wife wants to create custom painted toy blocks as a gift for a friend. The block will be approximately 3 inches per side, or whatever dimension is convenient based on the wood I purchase. I plan on cutting them using table saw.
What type of wood is appropriate for this project? Ideally it would be available at a big home improvement center, but I'm open to other options if they have significant advantages.
The big box home improvement centers in my area don't stock nice lumber thicker than 3/4". 2x pine lumber, sure, but nothing you'd want to use to make a kids toy that might go in a mouth.
I would recommend hard maple for its properties:
Actually 2x4's could be perfectly fine for this, depending on what you are actually looking for as an end product. They come in thicker dimensions and are a softer wood.
If you are looking to make something more like this
Then I'd go with a hard wood. Oak, Maple are both good woods to use. I would look for a species that they have in both regular lumber and matching dowels.
I have made many blocks using birch. It's a durable hardwood, not as heavy as maple and generally more affordable.
As reasonable as 3" cubes might sound, you might be very happy with 1 1/2" cubes which would be a size for which you could easily acquire wood. You would buy 2" boards and by the time you get them planed smooth you will be looking at something close to 1 1/2". Also, small hands will have trouble grasping 3" blocks, and when those wee hands grow a little, the 3 inchers can become heavy, dangerous missiles.
It is interesting to note that the traditional Tinkertoys were made from birch.
You should consider allergies and toxicity. Maple gives you all the properties you want and is hypoallergenic. It's why most wooden toys are made of maple.
Here in Canada Habitat for Humanity runs Re-Use-It stores. You can get all sorts of interesting stuff, usually close outs, or salvage.
One of the things I've seen frequently are small lots of hardwood flooring.
This might be more trouble than it's worth if pre-finished. The bottom face usually has several wide shallow grooves, so it would require planing, or gluing back to back to another piece. The pre-finished ones are very hard, with a thin layer of aluminum oxide. Might be tough on blades.
