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.
White Oak
Dense, ring-porous North American hardwood prized for its prominent ray fleck, closed pores, and legendary rot resistance.
HardwoodRed 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.
HardwoodPin 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.
HardwoodCeylon Oak
Extremely hard, heavy South Asian hardwood (kusum) with fine even grain and medium-to-dark brown color, used for tool handles, crushers, and turnery.
HardwoodDowny 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.
HardwoodWhite 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.
HardwoodReclaimed 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.
ReclaimedEnglish Oak
A ring-porous European white oak prized for strength, ray fleck, and durable heartwood in furniture, joinery, and cooperage.
HardwoodPyrenean 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.
HardwoodSilky Oak
A light golden Australian hardwood with bold ray fleck and a lacy, silky figure on quartered faces — the classic 'silky oak' of colonial furniture and joinery.
HardwoodWhite Poplar
A pale, lightweight European hardwood of the poplar family — soft, fine-textured, and odorless, long used for boxes, plywood core, and utility work.
HardwoodAmerican Beech
A pale, dense, close-grained North American hardwood with tiny gleaming rays — tough, steam-bendable, and long the standard for utility furniture.
HardwoodEastern White Pine
The classic soft, lightweight, pale North American pine: fine even grain, distinct growth rings, and a wood that carves, planes, and paints with ease.
SoftwoodWhite 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.
SoftwoodWhite Mangrove
A dense, hard mangrove hardwood of tropical tidal coasts — light tan to buff, small and gnarled, rarely milled and mostly used for posts, fuel, and charcoal.
Tropical & ExoticWhite Mulberry
A tough, golden-hued fruit-tree hardwood prized by turners and carvers for its ripple figure, though sawn samples often read pale cream to light tan.
HardwoodTropical Hardwood
A dense, imported Neotropical hardwood with golden-yellow sapwood, very dark brown heartwood and tight concentric growth rings.
Tropical & ExoticPaper Birch
A pale, fine-grained North American hardwood famous for its white peeling bark; tough, even, and easy to work but not decay-resistant.
HardwoodArborvitae
A very light, soft, aromatic softwood — better known as Northern White Cedar — prized for rot resistance in shingles, posts, and canoe ribs.
SoftwoodSoft 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.
HardwoodQuaking Aspen
A pale, lightweight North American hardwood — nearly white, fine and uniform in grain, soft and odorless, and the classic wood for saunas, matches, and pallets.
HardwoodLacewood
Australian rainforest hardwood whose quartersawn face bursts with a lacy ray-fleck figure — reddish-brown ground splashed with pale cream flecks.
Tropical & ExoticSugar Maple
Dense, pale North American hardwood prized for its hardness, tight even grain, and prized figure like bird's eye and curl.
HardwoodBlack Walnut
Prized North American hardwood with rich chocolate-brown heartwood, pale sapwood, and superb workability for fine furniture.
Hardwood