Books on Exotic Wood?

[Josiah Brown]

I was recently in Honduras and had the chance to check out a small woodworking shop there.  They were using several woods that I had never heard of before.  It is possible that I simply couldn't tell the wood species because of the different language, but I think there were also species I had never seen.  Does anyone know of any books/resources that could help me learn about foreign wood species?

[wdwerker]

"phinds" is our resident expert on wood ID. He has a website with tons of info and pictures !

http://www.hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/

[phinds]

For woods that are readily available in the USA you won't find a better reference than my site. For foreign woods that are NOT readily available in the USA, there are approximately 6 zillion of them and you aren't going to find any one source that deals with more than a fraction of them.  Just as an example, I have one book that just deals with woods from Southern Africa.

If you actually want a dead-tree version, I suggest Eric Meier's book, but for identifying wood, it's relatively useless compared to my site. For "fact sheets" about the woods, it's better on most (I have about 60, he has several hundred).

[wdwerker]

Were your ears burning ? 

[phinds]

46 minutes ago, wdwerker said:

Were your ears burning ? 

No. I have neither shame nor modesty.

[kyokahn]

Between Phinds' site and wooddatabase you can find most of the species, they just have too many different names and references are hard to find. There are, of course, many more obscure species not listed there.

You can find some more here, although this lists mostly Costa Rican names, the species should be fairly similar to what you can find in Honduras since it's fairly close.

http://www.premiumwoodslabs.com/wood-specs-menu/

 

[phinds]

If you want to know more, check out this fairly extensive list of wood ID resources including books and web sites

https://woodbarter.com/threads/wood-id-resources.70/

 

 

[Mark J]

@phinds is there a book you would recommend?

No book will have the depth and breath of your data base, but I am looking for place to begin learning about the identification process.  

At this point all bark looks like bark to me and Ray Fleck sounds like a character in a gum shoe novel.

And I like a book.  It's just not the same to sit with my morning coffee reading a few pages on a laptop.

 

[phinds]

22 minutes ago, Mark J said:

@phinds is there a book you would recommend?

No book will have the depth and breath of your data base, but I am looking for place to begin learning about the identification process.  

At this point all bark looks like bark to me and Ray Fleck sounds like a character in a gum shoe novel.

And I like a book.  It's just not the same to sit with my morning coffee reading a few pages on a laptop.

 

For wood ID knowledge, there is just one book. There ARE others but they just don't count in comparison. It's Bruce Hoadley's "Identifying Wood". I also recommend his "Understanding Wood".

For a hardcopy that attempts to do something like my site, I recommend the book that Eric Meier made from HIS site (The Wood Database). It's "WOOD Identifying and Using Hundreds of Woods of Woods Worldwide"

For others, check out my wood ID resource compendium mentioned above

 

 

[Mark J]

Thank you.  I read Understanding Wood, though a while back.  I was considering Identyfying Wood (despite the humerous picture which circulates).

After that it will be your database and Meier's which I've also taken a gander at.

[phinds]

39 minutes ago, Mark J said:

Thank you.  I read Understanding Wood, though a while back.  I was considering Identyfying Wood (despite the humerous picture which circulates).

After that it will be your database and Meier's which I've also taken a gander at.

The most important thing is to not overlook my anatomy pages. That's where the real wood ID information is, after reading Hoadley's Identifying Wood.

[phinds]

On 6/12/2017 at 2:19 PM, kyokahn said:

Between Phinds' site and wooddatabase you can find most of the species, they just have too many different names and references are hard to find. There are, of course, many more obscure species not listed there.

You can find some more here, although this lists mostly Costa Rican names, the species should be fairly similar to what you can find in Honduras since it's fairly close.

http://www.premiumwoodslabs.com/wood-specs-menu/

 

As far as the names are concerned, I have a free Windows app that sits in front of my database of 170,000 wood name identifications (common name / species name). You can get it here:

http://www.hobbithouseinc.com/wood_name_database/index.htm