# wood ID resources



## phinds

*NOTE: I go through from time to time and remove dead links and 
occasionally add new ones. The most recent edit was Dec, 2022
Paul (HobbitHouse) Hinds*

*NON-COMMERCIAL WEB SITES:*​
*HOBBIT HOUSE* --- This is my own site and I can say without the slightest bit of modesty that it has the best collection available anywhere of pics of woods that American woodworkers are likely to be able to get their hands on. It now has over 50,000 unique pics and a lot of them have enlargements. For some 60+ of these there are "fact sheets" that are based on, but somewhat more extensive than, the USDA fact sheets. The site also has a significant number of useful articles, some of which I have put specific links to here on this page.

*Hobbit House Wood ID cross reference table* --- a list of many hundreds of woods, which you can sort by common name or botanical name Each name provides two links, one to a web page showing anywhere from a few to a few hundred pics of that wood and a second link that takes you to an anatomy page showing the end grain characteristics of the wood.

*The Wood Database* --- An EXCELLENT site, with outstanding photography (and scanning) and very well written and informative articles, a couple of which are referenced below in "on-line articles". The owner of the site, Eric Meier, has now published the site in hard-copy in a book (WOOD! Identifying and Using Hundreds of Woods Worldwide) which is discussed below in the list of books. The big drawback to this site is that it only has a couple of pics of each wood, as opposed to the dozens to hundreds on the Hobbit House site.

*Lesser Known Woods*
*North American Hardwoods*
*North American Softwoods*
*Tropical Hardwoods*​These pages are information provided by the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture's Forest Products Lab. I DO caution you that this part of the USDA site is NOT well maintained and some of the information has been there for decades and it is NEVER updated. The site was given an impressive facelift sometime in the last few years but the underlying information (fact sheets, for example) was left unchanged.

*The "GRIN" taxonomy site* won't likely help you figure out what wood you've got, but it's a great reference on wood names.

*The Wood Book site* --- In the book list down below, there is discussed a book called The Wood Book. It was a massive project many decades ago and the book is still useful. This web site shows a complete set of all the pics of the woods discussed in the book and each one (flat cut, quartersawn, and end grain) has three levels of enlargement which makes it VERY useful. Unfortunately the web site does not reproduce the per-wood discussion from the book .

*The International Wood Collector's Society* I'm not a big fan of this organization, for reasons I expound on elsewhere, but it IS the premier organization for those who collect wood samples and I've had lots of great conversations, and a lot of help, from members of the organization. They sell a set of wood samples that is, without any possible doubt, the most shoddy collection of wood samples you could find anywhere. The sets are made of from contributions by the members and clearly most of the members contribute their own cast-offs, not good quality samples. My own site is littered with disparaging comments about various of the samples I got from them. To be fair, probably more than half of the samples in the kit were good ones, but hey ... even 25% bad is a pretty poor average. If they were a commercial organization, they'd be out of business. *LATER NOTE: The sample kit operation of the organization has been taken over by a man who is one of the best, possibly THE best, provider in the USA of formal wood samples. I consider his samples to be the gold standard. I don't know whether the organization's sample kit has improved any since I bought mine in about 2000/2001, but I can't imagine that this gentleman would stand for the kind of shoddy samples I got back then.

Woodworker's Website Association* --- site has a short list of species (by common name) with links to pics that range from reasonable to pretty poor.

*THE LOOK OF PROCESSED WOOD* --- a web page that shows all of the commonly known types of wood grain and figure.

*WOOD ID USING WOOD ANATOMY* --- an extensively illustrated article on how to use readily accessibly wood anatomy features to help identify wood. "Readily accessible" means you may need a 10X loupe and a sander but you don't need anything else. This page is just the first in a chain that will eventually lead to over 3,000 end grain pic organized to help narrow down a mystery wood to, one hopes, a final ID. Outside of the books by Hoadley (discussed below), this site is likely the best resource there is for wood ID by the average woodworker.

*WOOD ANATOMY *--- pics and text describing end grain for most common North American woods. These are generally quite good although I find them sometimes not very representative. Still, while it won't tell you how to find a mystery wood, it can be really good for verifying that a wood is what you think it is. Also, it often includes a pic of what the pith looks like, which can be very informative.

*CHATOYANC**E *--- "Chatoyance" is the way in which objects can change color, sometimes quite significantly, when the lighting on it changes. This organization has done an extensive study of chatoyance in wood and presents numerous brief videos show it, plus several chatoyance specific articles.


*COMMERCIAL VENDOR WEB SITES:*​
*Cook Woods* --- (called by some of my correspondents "Crook Woods" because of their prices, but that is somewhat unfair since they are only somewhat more expensive than other vendors) They have an extensive inventory of exotics with pics that are generally quite good and the outstandingly good thing about their site is that they show pics of EVERY piece of wood they sell, unlike most vendors who just show a single representative image per wood. They used to be just amazingly dishonest in the coloration of their wood pics but they seem to have improved significantly in the last year or two. In fact, I just did a quick review of their site, which I hadn't visited in years, and I find that they seem to have fired the dishonest photographer and hired someone honest. *LATER NOTE: they now sometimes slip back into their old ways.*

*Gilmer Wood Company* --- This site does an excellent job of presenting good wood pics; there are only a modest number there but what is there is very good.

*Keim Lumber Co.* --- has EXCELLENT and very large pics of quite a few species plus a fact sheet on each

*Carlton McLendon, Inc* --- A rare wood and veneer dealer that has pics of FAR more species than I have on my site (they have 1200+ and I have 400+), so in that sense it is very extensive, BUT ... it only has one pic of each species and that is not always as helpful as one would wish because of the variability of wood --- it's lots more helpful to have numerous pics as my site does. Still, this is one terrific reference site and the single-pic-per-wood pics that they do have are generally WAY above average for what you find on the internet.

*Righteous Hardwoods* --- This company has some very nice wood in stock but their pics tend to be small and mediocre so not much help in wood ID. *LINK CURRENTLY DEAD (12/24/2022)*

*West Penn Hardwoods* --- Very extensive selection of exotics and domestics in various forms (regular, thinwood, burls, slabs, etc) with decent pics.


*ON-LINE ARTICLES:*​
*a discussion of figure and grain terms with links to illustrations* --- This will not help you figure what what SPECIES of wood you have, but it may help you figure out what to call the LOOK of the wood (mottled, curly, etc.)

*An illustrated discussion on the confusion among the woods lacewood, leopardwood, planetree, sycamore, silky oak and others.*

*THE ROSEWOODS, REAL and OTHERWISE* --- an illustrated discussion of the look and characteristics of various rosewood species and some of the rosewood substitutes

A couple of excellent articles by Eric Meier, the creator of the web site The Wood Database mentioned in "non-commercial web sites" above:

*The truth behind wood identification*

*Wood identification Guide*



*BOOKS:*​
[NOTE: I have some currently unfinished reviews of some of these and I'll add more information over time --- as of right now, this is just a list of the most useful books in my own library.

Although I intend to have this section alphabetic for ease of reference, *I put the Hoadley books at the top because they just don't have any rivals*. They are THE books to get if you are interested in wood characteristics and wood identification.

*Understanding Wood* by R. Bruce Hoadley --- Hoadley is "the man" when it comes to scholarly works on wood these days. This book will tell you pretty much everything you could want to know about wood, what the various parts of trees are and how they work together as the tree grows and how the characteristics of the micro level constituents contribute to the macro characteristics of the wood.

*Identifying Wood**: Accurate Results With Simple Tools* by R. Bruce Hoadley --- This is another of Hoadley's scholarly works and it is focused, as the title clearly states, on what you need to know to identify wood. It is an outstanding work.

----- Also Particularly Recommended: -----​
*WOOD! Identifying and Using Hundreds of Woods Worldwide* by Eric Meier --- Excellent book, based on the Wood Database web site, with outstanding photography (and scanning) and very well written and informative articles, a couple of which are referenced below in "on-line articles". Full review at *Review of Wood!*

*A Guide to Useful Woods of the World* by James H. Flynn Jr. and Charles D. Holder (The International Wood Collector's Society) and the sequel *A Guide to More Useful Woods of the World* --- The first has 280 woods and the second another 70. The second has several good articles. There are two pages of info on each wood (so lots of info) and two pics: a face grain and an end grain. The face grain is taken at a good distance and is useful for seeing what a plank would look like. The end grain pics might be good for a Wood Anatomist, but for the average woodworker, they are much too micro and not very useful.


----- The rest of the pack -----​*100 Woods* by Peter Bishop --- Better that most such. Two pages per wood AND contains all three views (flat cut, quartersawn, and end grain). Unfortunately, the flat cut and quartersawn pics are too up-close so that they do a great job of showing the grain details but give very little sense of what a plank would look like.

*The Book of Wood Names* by Dr. Hans Meyer --- A dated work (1936) that is not as comprehensive as you would think when you first leaf through a copy, and it does have some errors, but it is the most comprehensive hard-copy publication that I know of that lists wood names.

*Characteristics, Properties and Uses of Timbers, South-east Asia, Northern Australia and the Pacific**,* Volume 1 by W.G. Keating and Eleanor Bolza --- gives description and characteristics for over 300 woods from the areas mentioned but only has about 30 pics and those are generally good, full page pics, but are taken too up-close so they don't really give a good feel for what a plank would look like.

*The Commercial Woods of Africa* by Peter Phongphaew --- about 180 African woods, one page per wood, ordered by common name. Pics are good but have been taken too up-close thus giving a good sense of the graininess of the wood but not a good sense of what a plank would look like, thus a bit hard to use for wood ID.

*The Encyclopedia of Wood* by the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture --- this is NOT a wood ID book; rather it is a massive compendium of things about the properties of wood in general and lots of details on how wood is used. It does have some brief descriptions (no pics) of of a few dozen specific woods but that's not its thrust at all.

*The Encyclopedia of Wood: * *A Tree-By-Tree Guide To The World's Most Versatile Resource *edited by Aidan Walker and published by Facts on File Inc. Full review at: *Review of The Encyclopedia of Wood*

*Good Wood Handbook* by Albert Jackson and David Day. Full review at:
*Review of Good Wood Handbook* but NOTE: the book linked to is NOT the one I have (the first edition), but the second edition which does not appear to be quite the same book (the blurb says "completely revised" so I don't know that my comments still hold. 

*What Wood is That? (A Manual Of Wood Identification)* by Herbert L. Edlin --- A so-so discussion of wood characteristics and tree identification, BUT it has little pieces of veneer actually in the book for 40 commonly available woods (both domestic and exotic), which is a great help with wood ID for those particular woods

*World Woods in Color* by William A. Lincoln. Full review at: *Review of World Woods in Color*

*The Wood Book* by Romeyn Beck Hough --- This is an astounding (and USEFUL) work. Full review at: *Review of The Wood Book*

*Wood Identification & Use* by Terry Porter --- a good selection of about 200 fairly common woods of the world with emphasis on those in North America, listed in alphabetical order of the botanical names, one page per wood. Pics are generally pretty good. but NOTE: the book linked to is NOT the one I have, it is the "revised and expanded" version, so I don't know that my comments still hold. 

*Woodworker's Guide to Wood* by Rick Peters --- a brief preliminary review is at *Review of Woodworker's Guide to Wood*

*Guide to the Properties and Uses of Southern African Woods** --- *An excellent reference to the woods of South Africa, showing each of a large number of woods with face grain pics both finished and unfinished and generally excellent end grain shots of each plus a pic of a made object using the wood.


*INFORMATION ON TREES AND PLANTS:*​
*The Tree Identification Book: A Photographic Field Guide* by George W.D. Symonds --- I picked up this book with the optimistic thought that I might someday learn how to figure out what tree is what, but I have never done more than just scan it so I can't even say how it rates in usefulness, but it LOOKS to be useful for tree ID.

*http://www.callutheran.edu/gf/plants/r_idx.htm* --- a university site that has a short list of names (both common and botanical) with links to plant information and some pics of the plants.


*MISC OTHER INFORMATION FOR WOOD ID:*​
*JANKA TABLE* --- *Janka hardness* is a mixed blessing in terms of trying to figure out what you have. First, all the lists I've ever seen give ONE NUMBER per species and that's just ridiculous; some species have quite a range of densities and hardness. Second, you probably don't have a setup in your shop that will let you measure the Janka hardness of the wood you're trying to identify (I am aware of exactly zero people who DO --- it's more of a research lab kind of thing, although it's not all that complicated). So, about the best it does is add one data point to the issue of "what's this wood I have". you can tell if your wood seems really hard and the wood you THINK it is has a low Janka rating, you're probably wrong about what it is. Likewise, if you find a soft to moderate wood and the wood you think it is had a really high Janka rating, you know you're on the wrong track. *ANYWAY, I've gone to the (very considerable) trouble of compiling, from every Janka list I could find, a table which I believe is more comprehensive than any other in existence. If you can't find the Janka hardness of a wood in this list, you probably can't find it anywhere. Also, you can sort the list by common name, botanical name, or Janka value.* JANKA TABLE


*COMPLETELY DISORGANIZED LIST OF WEB SITES WITH WOOD INFORMATION:*​
*Tervuren Xylarium Wood Database* --- a search-based database of wood names that will give you a ton of alternate common names and (SOMETIMES) links to macro and/or micro pics of the lumber. Some of their "macro pic" links point to my site.

*http://tomclothier.hort.net/page71.htm* --- likely to be of interest only to the most hard-core researcher of wood information, this provides an extensive list of "rejected" genus names and the corresponding "preferred" name, which can sometimes help you figure out when woods are sometimes given different botanical names (which can be misleading when you are trying to track down information about a species)

*http://www.angelfire.com/bc/eucalyptus/common.html* --- common name to botanical name cross reference for a significant number of the seven zillion Eucalyptus species, ordered by common name and with some pics of the plants (but not the lumber)

*PALM TREES / PALM TREES / PALM TREES* --- if you are looking for palm tree information, this is THE source (on the "TREE", not the "wood" (quotes used because palms are grasses, not wood)

*http://www.allcreativedesigns.com.au/pages/speciescommon.html* --- "Australian Tree Images site" is full of just that, along with a dual list of name pairs (common/botanical and botanical/common). The pics are of the tree, the leaves, and so forth, NOT the wood, but the names are useful even to those outside Australia

*http://plants.usda.gov/java/nameSearch* --- a USDA searchable database of plant information that allows you to input a common name or a botanical name and search for information, which can include other names, extent of geographic range in the US. NOTES: (1) this is ONLY for woods that grow in the U.S.A. so is of limited utility and (2) this is ONLY about the plants, not the wood itself.

*The Wood Explorer* --- This is a full-service COMMERCIAL database of wood information (it used to be, and may still be, available on a CD, which I have), so you pay for it. I have found this to be a somewhat unreliable source of information but it IS extensive and most of it is right. The problem, of course, is that you never know which part is WRONG. The pics (and there are a lot of them) range from quite good to very poor. I tried a couple of times in the past to contact the organization but with no success. *NOTE: This link now says that the site is a security risk*

*http://www1.biologie.uni-hamburg.de/b-online/wood/english/index.htm* --- an excellent source of textual and pictorial information on various woods. It's called "Commercial timbers" and it's by H. G. Richter and M. J. Dallwitz and it also includes (links at the bottom of each wood page) micro pics of various views. LOTS of woods included. I make a lot of use of this site when I am researching woods.

*RESEARCH SITES:*​
*http://insidewood.lib.ncsu.edu/welcome* --- a research database at the North Carolina State University called "Inside Wood". This is extensive and complex. Its main utility to a researcher is the extensive set of images of anatomical details of woods, found on the "LUNA" sub-site, which is here: http://images.lib.ncsu.edu/luna/servlet/view/all  You can enter a botanical name and (often, anyway) get micro-pics of the anatomy.


*WOOD NAME DATABASE:*​This is a Windows application sitting on top of a HUGE database of wood names. The database has a fairly use-friendly front end which makes it searchable in several simple ways. It has 170,000+ combined common/species names based on 140,000+ common names and 26,000+ species names. It lists species from 300+ botanical families. It's free and it's at:
*http://www.hobbithouseinc.com/wood_name_database*​

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