Wood Encyclopedia
Search and identify wood species from around the world — with origin, Janka hardness, grain and color, working properties, common uses, and how to tell them apart.
Brazilian Cedar
The aromatic 'cedar' of cigar boxes and guitar necks — a light, soft, spicy-scented tropical wood that is botanically a mahogany relative, not a true cedar.
Softwood
Genuine Mahogany
The classic cabinet wood: a medium-density tropical American hardwood, reddish-brown with an even grain, prized for stability, workability, and CITES protection.
Tropical & Exotic
Ormosia
A dense tropical South American legume wood with sharply demarcated reddish-brown heartwood against pale sapwood and clear growth rings.
Hardwood
Rowan
A tough, fine-textured European turning and carving wood from the rowan tree — pale tan sapwood, warm brown heart, and centuries of folklore.
Hardwood
Eastern White Pine
The classic soft, lightweight, pale North American pine: fine even grain, distinct growth rings, and a wood that carves, planes, and paints with ease.
Softwood
East Indian Rosewood
Dense, dark reddish-brown South Asian rosewood with fine interlocked grain — a fragrant, durable cabinet and instrument wood prized for tone and figure.
Hardwood
European Hornbeam
A pale, exceptionally hard and heavy European hardwood with fine, even grain — the classic wood for mallet heads, gears, tool handles, and piano actions.
Hardwood
Japanese Maple
The wood of the ornamental Japanese maple: dense, fine-grained, with tight concentric rings and a warm reddish-brown cast in this sample.
Hardwood
Honduran Mahogany
The benchmark cabinet wood — Swietenia macrophylla — prized for warm reddish-brown color, superb stability, and easy working; this sample shows rare pommele figure.
Tropical & Exotic
Oriented Strand Board (OSB)
An engineered structural panel of cross-oriented wood strands bonded with resin under heat and pressure — the pale, mottled tan sheathing board of modern construction.
Engineered
Gray Mangrove
Dense, hard tidal hardwood from the world's most widespread mangrove — pale tan wood banded with the concentric rings typical of Avicennia's unusual growth.
Hardwood
White Ash
A strong, pale, ring-porous North American hardwood with bold straight grain and outstanding shock resistance — the classic wood for tool handles and baseball bats.
Hardwood
Black Locust
Extremely hard, rot-resistant North American hardwood with golden-brown heartwood — the classic wood for fence posts and outdoor work.
Hardwood
Kingwood
A dense, violet-brown Brazilian rosewood streaked with dark lines — a historic marquetry and turning wood, small in size and premium in price.
Tropical & Exotic
Shagbark Hickory
A pale, exceptionally hard and shock-resistant North American hardwood — the classic tough wood for tool handles, ladder rungs, and flooring.
Hardwood
Black Alder
A pale tan-cream, light and soft European hardwood with even growth rings — easy to work, quick to turn and carve, and long the wood of choice under water.
Hardwood
Okoumé
A light, soft, golden-tan Central African hardwood with fine even grain — the classic marine-plywood and core-veneer wood, low in weight and easy to peel.
Tropical & Exotic
Meranti
Southeast Asian tropical hardwood from Shorea species — a mahogany-like utility wood, golden-orange to reddish-brown, widely used for plywood, joinery, and trim.
Tropical & Exotic
Abachi
A very light, soft, pale West African hardwood with fine even grain — the classic sauna-bench and core-veneer wood, low in weight, heat, and resin.
Tropical & Exotic
Hemp Palm
The fibrous stem of the cold-hardy windmill palm — not a true wood but a monocot with bundled fibers set in soft tissue, light tan with a dark speckled fiber pattern.
Tropical & Exotic
Giant Sequoia
The wood of Earth's most massive trees: light, soft, richly tannic, and famously rot-resistant, with a warm golden-brown to reddish heartwood.
Softwood
Particle Board
An engineered panel of wood chips and shavings bonded with resin under heat and pressure — cheap, flat, and stable, but weak, heavy, and moisture-sensitive.
Engineered
Quaking Aspen
A pale, lightweight North American hardwood — nearly white, fine and uniform in grain, soft and odorless, and the classic wood for saunas, matches, and pallets.
Hardwood
Cherry Laurel
A minor Prunus wood from an evergreen Mediterranean shrub-tree, cutting fine, even, pale-tan stock with visible growth rings.
Hardwood