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.
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
Reclaimed Oak
Salvaged oak recovered from old barns, beams, floors, and casks — dense, ring-porous timber prized for its aged patina, tight old-growth grain, and history.
Reclaimed
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
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
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
Softwood Plywood
Cross-laminated conifer veneers bonded into stable structural sheets — the pale, workaday plywood behind subfloors, sheathing, roofs and rough carpentry.
Engineered
Fig
The soft, pale, lightweight wood of the common fig tree — an orchard hardwood rarely milled for lumber, valued mainly for small turnery and carving.
Hardwood
Weathered Hardwood
Not a single species but any hardwood whose surface has silvered to grey from sun, rain, and time — prized for its fine, raised grain and reclaimed patina.
Hardwood
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
Weathered/Dead Wood
Salvaged, naturally aged timber — golden-brown and silvered by weather, streaked with blue fungal stain and honeycombed by insect tunnels — prized for character, not species.
Reclaimed
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
Lodgepole Pine
A pale, lightweight, straight-boled Rocky Mountain softwood — the classic tepee-pole tree — valued for framing lumber, house logs, and utility products.
Softwood
Mango Wood
A golden-brown tropical hardwood reclaimed from spent fruit orchards — light-tan with dark streaks, often figured, prized as a sustainable furniture wood.
Tropical & Exotic
Cork Oak
The evergreen Mediterranean oak prized for its thick cork bark; the wood beneath is a dense, hard, reddish-brown oak used mostly for charcoal, turnery, and firewood.
Hardwood
Freijo
A medium tan-brown Amazonian hardwood with a fine, even grain and a walnut-like look — stable, moderately hard, and easy to work.
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
Sugar Maple
Dense, pale North American hardwood prized for its hardness, tight even grain, and prized figure like bird's eye and curl.
Hardwood
African Walnut
A golden-brown West African hardwood with fine, lustrous, gently interlocked grain and a ribbon stripe — walnut-like in look but botanically a mahogany relative.
Hardwood
Louro Preto
A moderately hard, honey-brown Amazonian hardwood from Cordia goeldiana — often sold as Freijó — with a walnut-like look, easy working, and good stability.
Tropical & Exotic
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
Tree of Heaven
Pale cream-to-tan ring-porous hardwood from a fast-growing invasive tree — ash-like grain, light, satiny, and essentially free where it grows.
Hardwood