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.
Butternut
Pale honey-brown walnut relative — soft, light, easy to carve, and prized for its satiny sheen. Now scarce due to butternut canker.
Hardwood
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
Norway Maple
A pale, fine-grained European maple with even diffuse-porous texture and a clean cream-tan color — a good-turning, easily finished utility hardwood.
Hardwood
Yew
A dense, springy European softwood prized for its rich orange-brown heartwood, knotty figure, and the legendary spring that made English longbows.
Softwood
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
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
Plum
A dense, fine-grained fruitwood in the cherry family, prized by turners and carvers for its rich streaky color and small, knotty billets.
Hardwood
Olive
The dense, richly streaked wood of the olive tree: pale tan and cream shot through with darker brown heartwood, prized by turners for its dramatic figure.
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
English Oak
A ring-porous European white oak prized for strength, ray fleck, and durable heartwood in furniture, joinery, and cooperage.
Hardwood
Silver Fir
A pale, lightweight European softwood — creamy, fine, even grained and resin-canal free — long sold with spruce as generic 'whitewood' for building and joinery.
Softwood
Boxwood
Exceptionally dense, fine-grained European hardwood in pale cream-yellow, prized for engraving, turning, carving, and instrument fittings.
Hardwood
Larch
A dense, resinous, weather-tough conifer with fine growth rings — the softwood of choice for outdoor cladding and where rot resistance matters.
Softwood
Hop Hornbeam
A dense, pale, extremely hard European hardwood — fine, even-grained 'ironwood' from a small understory tree, prized for tough turnery and handles.
Hardwood
Sweet Chestnut
A pale-tan, oak-like European hardwood — ring-porous, light, and naturally durable — long used for beams, fencing, coopering, and rustic furniture.
Hardwood
Grand Fir
A light, soft, pale Pacific Northwest true fir with fine even grain and low resin — an economical framing and utility softwood, mild-working but not decay-resistant.
Softwood
Sweet Cherry
The prized European cabinet cherry: fine tight-ringed grain and a silky surface that ripens from creamy tan to warm reddish-brown.
Hardwood
Black Locust
Extremely hard, rot-resistant North American hardwood with golden-brown heartwood — the classic wood for fence posts and outdoor work.
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
Mangrove Apple
A fine, dense, light-tan tropical mangrove hardwood — modest in size and rarely a commercial timber, used locally for tough, decay-prone service.
Tropical & Exotic
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
Bird Cherry
A fine-grained European Prunus with reddish-brown heartwood, tight annual rings, and a warm satiny surface — a small-scale cabinet and turning wood.
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