Welcome

The Wood Database is growing by leaps and bounds. Virtually every day a new wood species is uploaded or updated in the database.

With that being said, this project is very much a work in progress (and probably will remain so for a long time), simply because of the sheer volume of wood species, and the time and effort that’s involved in writing and scanning new content for all of the profiles.

Chances are, if there is a common species missing from the database, it’s simply that I haven’t gotten to it yet. But, if you’d like to see a specific species added sooner rather than later, let me know via the contact form. Additionally, if you’ve got a wood sample that you think is rare or hard to find, and you’d be willing to mail-in a small sample for the database, see details on the contact page.

What Makes “The Wood Database” Special

• Clean, Simple Layout

There are several other wood identification websites out there, so why have I undertaken to do what has seemingly already been done? Being an online woodworker, I browse these sites all the time, and I know that there is still a need for a well-designed website with both quality pictures and content, and a simple and well-designed user-interface to help people find what they’re looking for fast.

I’ve organized all of the wood profiles under several different headings, sorted either by common name, scientific name, or without thumbnails. No matter what your point of reference, you should be able to pinpoint the wood species that you need to find quickly and easily.

Additionally, I’ve laid out the wood profiles so that you can find the facts fast. You will not be bombarded with giant charts filled with seemingly meaningless numbers, but you’ll see relevant and useful information on the wood you’re researching. And yet at the same time, I’ve tried to include some actual real hard data as well, and things have not been dumbed down to: “hard and heavy, stability good.” I try to indicate how hard, how heavy, and how stable it is in relation to other woods and materials.

• Blog Format
  

I recognize that there are many, many woodworkers out there that have a wealth of information on wood. And I’ve gone to great lengths to design this website to be “open” and give others the opportunity to add new data as they see fit. Hence the tagline at the top of this website: “By Woodworkers, For Woodworkers.”

Do you have a helpful tip or bit of information on a certain wood species? Share it! Your comments will be appended and shown under the profile of that particular wood species. And if the information is meaningful enough, I can also edit the actual database entry to reflect the data that you’ve shared.

• High-Resolution Scans

Notice I didn’t say “pictures.” That’s because whenever possible, I’ve avoided the use of pictures due to their (relatively) inaccurate rendition of color and detail. Instead, I’ve digitally scanned the wood sample in high resolution: no blurry pictures or inaccurate colors.

Nearly all of the wood profile scans that you see have been done manually: I have not “borrowed” or yanked anyone else’s pictures from their website. (Though I will occasionally include some pictures on some of the wood profiles to illustrate finished works or larger surfaces that can’t be scanned easily.)

Latest News

March 2011: Lately I’ve been caught up trying to add a new feature to the wood database: endgrain zoom scans. It’s been said that the endgrain is like the fingerprint of wood: it gives a unique picture of the wood species, and is very helpful in identifying it from other lookalikes. While not all woods are completely identifiable from a 10x magnification of the endgrain alone, a large portion can be identified and categorized, and an educated guess can be made. Thus, I’ll be trying to add not only a clear, accurate 10x zoom scan of the endgrain, but also a written description in a new field underneath the Grain/Pore field on each wood species.

Rengas (endgrain 10x)

Right now, I don’t have all the bugs and difficulties worked out yet: it is quite a task to eliminate sanding scratches in the endgrain at 10x magnification! I’ve still got a long way to go, and a lot of problems to solve. One problem I’m having is showing the pores of some wood species with extremely tiny pore openings. It seems that the pores are so small, that as soon as any sanding or machining is done, dust is permanently and inextricably embedded in the pores: I can’t vacuum or blow them out. Thus, I am searching for a way to plane or surface the endgrain of some of the very dense hardwoods in a single swipe (possibly a low-angle block plane?) and leave the surface smooth and clear enough to be scanned in at 10x magnification. I’ve yet to find a solution for some woods.

For now, check out the latest scanned addition to the database: Rengas.

~Eric Meier