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.
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
English Walnut
European hardwood prized for warm brown heartwood and superb figure; the classic gunstock, furniture and veneer walnut.
Hardwood
Bamboo
A fast-growing woody grass — not a true wood — used as round culms and glued into hard, dimensionally stable engineered boards and flooring.
Bamboo
Golden Chain Tree
Dense, hard European ornamental hardwood prized for its rich color contrast and used in turning, inlay, and woodwind instruments — but every part is poisonous.
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
Soft Maple or Ash (unidentified)
A pale cream-to-tan Eastern North American hardwood — this sample sits between soft maple and ash, two common domestic species that overlap in light stock.
Hardwood
Pterospermum
A medium-density, fine and even-grained Southeast Asian hardwood from the bayur (Pterospermum) tree, showing a warm medium-to-dark brown planed surface.
Hardwood