The furniture industry has first started using black locust as hidden structural components. Locust kitchen chairs and desk frames were made, and subsequently, black locust also appeared as raw material for living room chairs and tables. Its use as material for indoor furniture was hindered both by its colour multitude and difficult machinability. These problems have been solved by steaming, dyeing and the use of modern carbide-tipped tools, so much so that today even edge-profiled solid wood panels are made of it. Owing to its durability, black locust is currently the most important raw material for outdoor furniture.
It plays an important part in structural applications, glulam beams, residential housing, tool-sheds, fence components and panelling. In addition to solid wood flooring, laminated floors are also manufactured where the surface layer exposed to wear is made of black locust. Cartwright traditionally makes use of black locust. Tool handles are produced in large amounts of it. Attempts seem to be successful to manufacture large glued-laminated railway ties for switches.
At last, the utilisation of black locust as energy source has to be mentioned.Also, promising experiments are conducted into establishing short-rotation energy wood plantations.