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.
Silver Birch
Pale cream-white European hardwood with fine, even grain and clear growth rings; tough, plywood-grade, but low in decay resistance.
Hardwood
Black Walnut
Prized North American hardwood with rich chocolate-brown heartwood, pale sapwood, and superb workability for fine furniture.
Hardwood
Douglas Fir
A strong, stiff Pacific Northwest softwood — cream to tan with bold growth rings and reddish bands — the backbone of North American structural timber.
Softwood
Red Oak
The workhorse of American hardwoods — a strong, ring-porous, coarse-grained oak with bold rays, a reddish cast, and open pores you can see with the naked eye.
Hardwood
Reclaimed Historic Softwood
Weathered structural softwood salvaged from a historic Texas building — gray silvered surface over warm brown patina, with straight old-growth grain.
Reclaimed
Kauri
A golden, fine-grained New Zealand softwood — even-textured and stable, famed for huge clear boards and for ancient bog-buried 'swamp kauri'.
Softwood
Conifer (unidentified)
A pale, straight-grained North American softwood cut from an unidentified conifer — light tan to pale yellow, light in weight, and easy to work.
Softwood
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 Cedar
Japan's national tree and premier building softwood — light, straight-grained, aromatic sugi prized for its warm tone and easy working.
Softwood
Butternut
Pale honey-brown walnut relative — soft, light, easy to carve, and prized for its satiny sheen. Now scarce due to butternut canker.
Hardwood
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
Sugar Maple
Dense, pale North American hardwood prized for its hardness, tight even grain, and prized figure like bird's eye and curl.
Hardwood
Shorea
Broad Southeast Asian genus sold as meranti and lauan — a light tan, straight-grained tropical hardwood used for plywood, joinery, and utility furniture.
Tropical & Exotic
Unknown Softwood
A pale cream to light-tan European softwood of undetermined species, showing straight grain, visible rays and radial surface checking — light, soft and easy to work.
Softwood
Birch Veneer
Thin, rotary-cut or sliced sheets of pale birch used as plywood faces and cabinet skins — light tan, straight-grained, and prized for its clean, even surface.
Hardwood
American Beech
A pale, dense, close-grained North American hardwood with tiny gleaming rays — tough, steam-bendable, and long the standard for utility furniture.
Hardwood
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
Downy Oak
A dense, pale-gold Central European white oak with fine, distinct annual rings and broad rays — tough, durable, and closely related to English oak.
Hardwood
Indian Sandalwood
The famed fragrant heartwood of Santalum album: fine, close, warm golden-brown wood prized for carving and aromatic oil, and now strictly protected.
Tropical & Exotic
Softwood Plywood
Cross-laminated conifer veneers bonded into stable structural sheets — the pale, workaday plywood behind subfloors, sheathing, roofs and rough carpentry.
Engineered
Whitebeam
A pale, fine-grained European hardwood from the Sorbus family — dense, hard, and even-textured, prized in small pieces for turning, tool parts, and precision work.
Hardwood
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
Birch
A pale, fine-grained northern hardwood — cream to white with warm tones, strong and even-textured, and the backbone of quality birch plywood.
Hardwood
European Beech
Pale, fine-textured European hardwood; hard, heavy, and the classic steam-bending timber for bentwood chairs, tool handles, and turnery.
Hardwood