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.
Sugar Maple
Dense, pale North American hardwood prized for its hardness, tight even grain, and prized figure like bird's eye and curl.
HardwoodAlpine Laburnum
Dense, hard European hardwood from the golden-chain tree — prized in fine turnery and oyster veneer, with a distinctive golden-tan to olive-brown heart.
HardwoodDowny 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.
HardwoodConifer (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.
SoftwoodEastern 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.
SoftwoodWhitebeam
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.
HardwoodWhite Spruce
A light, pale, straight-grained North American softwood — the classic clean, low-resin utility conifer prized for its strength-to-weight ratio and pale even face.
SoftwoodBloodwood
The intensely red South American hardwood: very dense, hard, and fine-textured, prized for its vivid blood-red heartwood in turning, inlay, and accents.
Tropical & ExoticSlippery Elm
A tough, interlocked-grain North American elm with reddish-brown heartwood — nearly unsplittable, excellent for bending, and long prized where impact strength matters.
HardwoodPyrenean Oak
A warm golden-toned Iberian white oak with prominent ring-porous grain and bold ray fleck — a hardy, medium-dense European oak used for furniture, flooring, and cooperage.
HardwoodPitch Pine
A resinous eastern-North-American softwood: pale yellow-brown, distinct growth rings, heavy for a pine, historically prized for its pitch and durable, resin-soaked heartwood.
SoftwoodKatalox
A dense, very dark brown-to-black tropical hardwood from Mexico and Central America, prized as an affordable ebony substitute with fine, tight grain.
Tropical & ExoticAbachi
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