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.
Hardwood
European Maple
Pale, lustrous European hardwood prized for curly and burl figure; the classic tonewood for violin backs and fine turnery.
Hardwood
Japanese Maple
The wood of the ornamental Japanese maple: dense, fine-grained, with tight concentric rings and a warm reddish-brown cast in this sample.
Hardwood
Red Maple
A pale, fine-grained North American soft maple prized for its clean look, easy machining, and value-friendly availability.
Hardwood
Birdseye Maple
Figured hard maple dotted with tiny circular 'eyes' — a light, pale-golden North American hardwood prized for showpiece 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
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
Abachi
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
Yellow Birch
A tough, fine-grained North American hardwood — pale to golden-brown, strong and shock-resistant, and the primary birch of furniture, flooring, and plywood.
Hardwood
Schima
A medium-hard, light-tan-to-brown Asian hardwood from the needlewood tree (Schima wallichii), used for construction, furniture, and plywood — but with irritant bark and dust.
Hardwood
Bahera
A moderately hard, fine-grained reddish-brown to tan Asian hardwood from the bahera (beleric myrobalan) tree, used for utility joinery, plywood, and packing.
Tropical & Exotic
Engineered Wood
A broad family of manufactured boards built from wood fibers, particles, or veneers bonded with adhesives — uniform, stable, and free of a single natural species.
Engineered
Silver Birch
Pale cream-white European hardwood with fine, even grain and clear growth rings; tough, plywood-grade, but low in decay resistance.
Hardwood
Birch
A pale, fine-grained northern hardwood — cream to white with warm tones, strong and even-textured, and the backbone of quality birch plywood.
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
Okoumé
A light, soft, golden-tan Central African hardwood with fine even grain — the classic marine-plywood and core-veneer wood, low in weight and easy to peel.
Tropical & Exotic
White Poplar
A pale, lightweight European hardwood of the poplar family — soft, fine-textured, and odorless, long used for boxes, plywood core, and utility work.
Hardwood
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