# more on my new wood ID toy



## phinds (Nov 29, 2019)

In a previous thread, I discussed my new USB microscope and showed how I have it set up. I was doing a few more end grains with it a couple of days ago and one particularly well focused one one of honey locust inspired me to create this discussion of the image sizes:

The "X" factors listed are valid only if you are looking at the image below in full size.

Reactions: Like 1 | Way Cool 5 | Informative 3


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## Bob Ireland (Nov 29, 2019)

That is so cool. Is there much ID done at that microscopic level yet?


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## phinds (Nov 29, 2019)

Bob Ireland said:


> That is so cool. Is there much ID done at that microscopic level yet?


By me no, by NC State University (my main reference site) and others, yes, quite a lot. In this link they show 233,291 closeups of various shots of the three standard views wood anatomy, taken of probably several thousand different species, often with many different samples of a given species.

Some of their pics are not as good as mine, many are better.

https://images.lib.ncsu.edu/luna/servlet/view/all

A big problem with the images on that site is that there is usually no indication of the size of the piece that the image is of. @Mr. Peet knows the woman who is currently responsible for this site and he tells me that she has told him that when there IS a size shown, it is completely unreliable.

The very good news about that site is that you can narrow down your search by entering known characterists of the mystery wood you want to figure out.

I just use the site to confirm that my ID's are correct.

The further bad news about that site is that while they show anatomy for many very obscure woods, they are missing many woods that are used by North American woodworkers. Many of the woods on my site do not exist on the NCSU site.

Mark, please jump in if you have anything to add to what I've said about the NCSU site.


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## trc65 (Nov 30, 2019)

Very cool!!!

All of the taxonomy that I learned was from vegetative characteristics (weed science), and reproductive structures (botany). Never had any classes dealing with the wood itself. Really enjoy learning (slowly), the wood taxonomy through discussions here and from the info on your site.


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## phinds (Nov 30, 2019)

trc65 said:


> Very cool!!!
> 
> All of the taxonomy that I learned was from vegetative characteristics (weed science), and reproductive structures (botany). Never had any classes dealing with the wood itself. Really enjoy learning (slowly), the wood taxonomy through discussions here and from the info on your site.


You should check out the sticky's at the top of this forum

Reactions: Thank You! 1


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## DKMD (Nov 30, 2019)

Very cool! The detail in that 300x picture is amazing. Next step... electron microscope!

Reactions: Funny 1


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## phinds (Nov 30, 2019)

DKMD said:


> Very cool! The detail in that 300x picture is amazing. Next step... electron microscope!


Well, that's one of the best I've gotten so far. I do find the tool useful but a better end grain cleanup would be needed to go any further and I doubt it would be useful. If I could get the SIDE grain to clean up good enough, now that would be useful but I know from experience that my kind of processing just won't get me there.


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