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 Oak
The workhorse of American hardwoods — a strong, ring-porous, coarse-grained oak with bold rays, a reddish cast, and open pores you can see with the naked eye.
Hardwood
White Ash
A strong, pale, ring-porous North American hardwood with bold straight grain and outstanding shock resistance — the classic wood for tool handles and baseball bats.
Hardwood
White Oak
Dense, ring-porous North American hardwood prized for its prominent ray fleck, closed pores, and legendary rot resistance.
Hardwood
Pin Oak
A ring-porous red-oak-group hardwood — pale tan with reddish undertones, coarse open grain and bold rays, sold and worked as red oak.
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
Downy Oak
A dense, pale-gold Central European white oak with fine, distinct annual rings and broad rays — tough, durable, and closely related to English oak.
Hardwood
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
English Oak
A ring-porous European white oak prized for strength, ray fleck, and durable heartwood in furniture, joinery, and cooperage.
Hardwood
Pyrenean Oak
A warm golden-toned Iberian white oak with prominent ring-porous grain and bold ray fleck — a hardy, medium-dense European oak used for furniture, flooring, and cooperage.
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
American Beech
A pale, dense, close-grained North American hardwood with tiny gleaming rays — tough, steam-bendable, and long the standard for utility furniture.
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
European Beech
Pale, fine-textured European hardwood; hard, heavy, and the classic steam-bending timber for bentwood chairs, tool handles, and turnery.
Hardwood
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
Lacewood
Australian rainforest hardwood whose quartersawn face bursts with a lacy ray-fleck figure — reddish-brown ground splashed with pale cream flecks.
Tropical & Exotic
Unknown Softwood
A pale cream to light-tan European softwood of undetermined species, showing straight grain, visible rays and radial surface checking — light, soft and easy to work.
Softwood