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.
Red Maple
A pale, fine-grained North American soft maple prized for its clean look, easy machining, and value-friendly availability.
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
European Maple
Pale, lustrous European hardwood prized for curly and burl figure; the classic tonewood for violin backs and fine turnery.
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
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
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
Ormosia
A dense tropical South American legume wood with sharply demarcated reddish-brown heartwood against pale sapwood and clear growth rings.
Hardwood
Coast Redwood or Giant Sequoia
California's iconic reddish softwood — light, straight-grained, aromatic-free, and prized for its exceptional natural decay resistance in old-growth heartwood.
Softwood
Red Alder
The Pacific Northwest's workhorse softwood-of-a-hardwood: pale, even-textured, and famous for the warm orange blush it takes on when freshly cut.
Hardwood
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.
Softwood
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
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
Cocobolo
A dense, oily Central American rosewood prized for vivid reddish-orange heartwood streaked with dark accents — a CITES-listed knife-handle and turning wood.
Tropical & Exotic
Pau d'arco
Extremely dense, reddish- to orange-brown South American hardwood — the classic ipe/lapacho decking and outdoor timber, prized for hardness and rot resistance.
Tropical & Exotic
Goncalo Alves
The bold striped tropical hardwood sold as Tigerwood: hard, heavy, and durable, prized for its dramatic dark chocolate streaks over a reddish-orange-brown ground.
Tropical & Exotic
Beech Fossil Wood
Fossilized (petrified) beech — the original Fagus wood turned to stone yet still showing cream, tan, red, and brown growth rings. A collector specimen, not workable lumber.
Hardwood
African Padauk
The brilliant orange-red African hardwood: hard, heavy, and durable, prized for its vivid vermillion color, medium interlocked grain, and easy working.
Tropical & Exotic
Padauk
Dense, durable Southeast Asian hardwood famous for vivid orange-red heartwood that ages to a deep purple-maroon, prized for furniture, flooring and turning.
Tropical & Exotic