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.

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Spruce

A light, soft, pale cream-to-tan European softwood with fine even grain — strong for its weight, easy to work, and the classic tonewood for instrument soundboards.

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.

Colorado Blue Spruce

Colorado Blue Spruce

A pale, lightweight Rocky Mountain softwood with fine, even growth rings — an ornamental spruce whose creamy, straight-grained wood is used mainly for utility lumber and paper.

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.

European Hornbeam

European Hornbeam

A pale, exceptionally hard and heavy European hardwood with fine, even grain — the classic wood for mallet heads, gears, tool handles, and piano actions.

European Ash

A pale, ring-porous European hardwood — tough, springy and shock-resistant, with bold grain lines and legendary steam-bending and handle-making qualities.

European Maple

Pale, lustrous European hardwood prized for curly and burl figure; the classic tonewood for violin backs and fine turnery.

European Beech

Pale, fine-textured European hardwood; hard, heavy, and the classic steam-bending timber for bentwood chairs, tool handles, and turnery.

European Hardwood (Unknown)

European Hardwood (Unknown)

An unidentified temperate hardwood sampled in the Czech Republic, showing reddish-brown heartwood, a darker outer ring, and clear medium-spaced growth rings.

Conifer (unidentified)

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.

Lodgepole Pine

A pale, lightweight, straight-boled Rocky Mountain softwood — the classic tepee-pole tree — valued for framing lumber, house logs, and utility products.

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 Plywood

Softwood Plywood

Cross-laminated conifer veneers bonded into stable structural sheets — the pale, workaday plywood behind subfloors, sheathing, roofs and rough carpentry.

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.

London Plane

A European hybrid plane whose quartersawn boards show the classic lacewood fleck — golden-tan, ray-flecked timber prized for decorative veneer and joinery.

Black Alder

A pale tan-cream, light and soft European hardwood with even growth rings — easy to work, quick to turn and carve, and long the wood of choice under water.

Silver Birch

Pale cream-white European hardwood with fine, even grain and clear growth rings; tough, plywood-grade, but low in decay resistance.

Oriental Plane

A golden-brown Mediterranean hardwood famous for its dazzling ray fleck — the classic 'lacewood' figure on the quartered face.

Yew

A dense, springy European softwood prized for its rich orange-brown heartwood, knotty figure, and the legendary spring that made English longbows.

Plum

A dense, fine-grained fruitwood in the cherry family, prized by turners and carvers for its rich streaky color and small, knotty billets.

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.

Rowan

A tough, fine-textured European turning and carving wood from the rowan tree — pale tan sapwood, warm brown heart, and centuries of folklore.

Boxwood

Exceptionally dense, fine-grained European hardwood in pale cream-yellow, prized for engraving, turning, carving, and instrument fittings.

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.