Good Old Wood Jack Kramer Check out the construction of any number of telescopes, and you're likely to see a lot of wood being used as a main ingredient. Even commercial manufacturers often provide wooden tripods. Apart from the fact that wood is the most readily available and easily-worked material, there's a good reason for using lots of it.
Wood has superior dampening characteristics.
This means that vibrations settle out more quickly in wood than in metal of comparable mass. A number of years ago, I wanted to rework my telescope mounting, and as luck would have it, another member of the club offered to give me his old German equatorial mounting. He's a tool and die maker and had done a beautiful job of machining this mounting and pedestal of heavy-gauge aluminum. After making a new saddle to mount the scope, I couldn't wait to try out my prize. But upon aiming the scope at an object in the night sky, I found that the mounting was like a giant tuning fork.