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.
Ebony
Dense, jet-black tropical hardwood with an extremely fine, poreless grain, prized for instrument parts, fine turning, and inlay.
Tropical & Exotic
African Ebony
Dense, jet-black West African hardwood with an extremely fine grain, prized for instrument parts, inlay, and fine turning.
Tropical & Exotic
Macassar Ebony
A dense, dramatically striped tropical ebony from Sulawesi — black and warm brown banded with lighter streaks, prized for veneer, inlay, and fine detail.
Tropical & Exotic
White 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.
Softwood
Katalox
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 & Exotic
Wenge
Dark brown-to-black Central African hardwood with a bold black-and-tan striped figure, coarse texture, and high density — a favorite for flooring and accents.
Tropical & Exotic
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
Sugar Maple
Dense, pale North American hardwood prized for its hardness, tight even grain, and prized figure like bird's eye and curl.
Hardwood
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
White Mangrove
A dense, hard mangrove hardwood of tropical tidal coasts — light tan to buff, small and gnarled, rarely milled and mostly used for posts, fuel, and charcoal.
Tropical & Exotic