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The Wood Database

230 points by sinab 4y ago

ioseph 4y ago
So great to see a well populated Australia section. We have lovely hardwoods but a lot of the popular woodwork reesources are very focused on European and American species. Thanks!
smitty1e 4y ago
Shout out to southwestern Oregon => https://www.wood-database.com/oregon-myrtle/ https://www.wood-database.com/oregon-myrtle/
bythreads 4y ago
Great ressource!
hnlmorg 4y ago
Even though I don't suffer from trypophobia, I'm still finding the the Banksia Pod to be the stuff of nightmares. https://www.wood-database.com/banksia-pod/ https://www.wood-database.com/banksia-pod/
- numbers 4y ago
  Whoa that was a creepy one! You got me! I would run if I saw this
- fian 4y ago
  The Snugglepot and Cuddlepie series of children's books by May Gibbs feature Banksia men as the villains: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snugglepot_and_Cuddlepie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snugglepot_and_Cuddlepie
schmichael 4y ago
Wish I could submit entries as I love using Western Juniper (Juniperus occidentalis) for yard projects like garden boxes and swingsets. Great option for folks in the Pacific Northwest. It's effectively an invasive species in its natural habitat though because of forest mismanagement! https://www.snwwood.com/channels/website/documents/restorationjuniper.pdf https://www.snwwood.com/channels/website/documents/restorati... Update: found it! Submitting: https://www.wood-database.com/donating-wood-samples/ https://www.wood-database.com/donating-wood-samples/
- Wistar 4y ago
  Juniper is fantastic for raised beds. I usually get it at Dunn Lumber in the spring (Seattle area).
  - galangalalgol 4y ago
    are we talking about juniperous virginiana? Beautiful tree, horrible allergen. It does decemt at resisting insects amd rot. But if you want that bed to outlive you use osage orange. Rip it green though or you'll spend a fortune in blades.
    - QuercusMax 4y ago
      Different species - occidentalis (meaning Western) vs virginiana (from Virginia), on different sides of the continent.
caramelcustard 4y ago
[insert the image of the front cover of the legendary "Identifying Wood: Accurate Results With Simple Tools (by R. Bruce Hoadley)"]
born-jre 4y ago
nitpick, website with footer and infinite scroll not good. :D
- bergenty 4y ago
  Does it have a footer? If they put all the footer information on the top I really like the setup on this site. Infinite scroll works really well in this situation?
- xpe 4y ago
  Interestingly, the creator is named Eric Meier -- not the same as Eric Meyer, known for his CSS expertise [1] [1] https://meyerweb.com/eric/css/ https://meyerweb.com/eric/css/
- xpe 4y ago
  I feel the same. There is a footer, but viewing it is quest that is always just out of reach.
- throwaway742 4y ago
  Infinite scroll is never good.
Jedd 4y ago
This is an excellent resource. I recently stumbled on an 'egg collection' for wood. This is almost literally what it sounds like - a huge collection of images of egg-shaped pieces of timber, that really shows off the colour and grain. A focus on Australian timbers, of course, but that's no bad thing as we're otherwise often poorly represented. https://ttit.id.au/eggpage/alleggs.htm https://ttit.id.au/eggpage/alleggs.htm
- pengaru 4y ago
  Bookmarked, thanks!
- augustk 4y ago
  > This is an excellent resource. ...for people living in U.S., Myanmar and Liberia.
  - Jedd 4y ago
    Agreed that the parochial measurement system is frustrating - those filters could certainly benefit from an 'are you in the 95 percent?' toggle to flip to sane units. FWIW the entries for each timber do have the metric (Pa, metre, etc) figures shown in parenthesis after the US imperial figures.
- steanne 4y ago
  oh, interesting. clown faces are registered by recording the patterns on ceramic eggs. i suppose it's a convenient size/shape for samples in general.
metatranca 4y ago
Quick question probably not super related: do you know if something similar exists for floor tiles? I live in US and recently bought a house that has tiles from Italy, they look old but I love them and I would like to see if I can find them online(I already tried Lowes and similar).
eropple 4y ago
I use this site a ton to the point where I've bought both the hardcover and paperback versions of the book (hardcover now out of print due to COVID troubles). It's a fantastic resource for woodworkers.
- davidcuddeback 4y ago
  Duckduckgo supports "!wood" for searching the wood database. Makes quick work if looking something up from the address bar.
coolflower 4y ago
Suggest you an open source project that can use the picture of the wood to search for similar wood. https://milvus.io/ https://milvus.io/
osigurdson 4y ago
I suspect a lot of topic specific websites from the 90s just became wikipedia pages. However, there is evident value in highly curated content like this in a broad subject area that many people care about.
wheels 4y ago
This is my favorite practical tool for woodwork -- it tells you how much different woods will sag based on the properties of the load: https://woodbin.com/calcs/sagulator/ https://woodbin.com/calcs/sagulator/
rzarate 4y ago
I was expecting the link to take me to a landing page for a database implementation based on wood analogies.
- JeanMo 4y ago
  Same. But i was not disappointed. The world has enough databases :D
Fiahil 4y ago
Seems to be an amazing resource, but so sad that it's tailored for an American audience with an English-only catalogue and those unreadable units (wtf is a lbs/ft3, seriously ?). Edit: Ah ! They have meters and kg/m3 on each detail page, that's better !
- akiselev 4y ago
  The standard unit for purchasing lumber in the United States is a board-foot which is 1"x12"x12" or 1/12th of a cubic foot. Cubic feet is used because "board-foot" is too industry specific but it's still easy enough to convert when you need to calculate the weight of your woodworking/construction.
wigster 4y ago
three 'different' alders seem to have the same image
mjw_byrne 4y ago
Whilst randomly browsing on this site, I came across a piece of my own work! I made the chess piece pictured on the "kingwood" page. I _think_ that's the first time I've ever completely randomly stumbled upon myself online, i.e. with no intention whatsoever of actually looking up something I'd done. Nice little boost to start the day with :-)
vr46 4y ago
This site literally represents everything I love about the Internet and makes me long for the early 1990s, when people would gather and curate information for its own sake and their own satisfaction. I like Ian’s Shoelace Site too.
thadk 4y ago
I scraped the list of species from the main list page and put all of the woods into their phylogenetic tree: https://observablehq.com/@thadk/life https://observablehq.com/@thadk/life (desktops only; use a preset list: wood-database.com; linear) or here's the PNG: https://www.dropbox.com/s/8uq8i5gyenp3t4x/wood-radial3.png?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/8uq8i5gyenp3t4x/wood-radial3.png?d... Next step for someday is to replace phylotree.js with a D3 visualization on it which shows each image using the URL so you can see how the grains of the word relate according to the tree of trees.

230 points by sinab 4y ago

So great to see a well populated Australia section. We have lovely hardwoods but a lot of the popular woodwork reesources are very focused on European and American species. Thanks!

smitty1e 4y ago

Shout out to southwestern Oregon => https://www.wood-database.com/oregon-myrtle/ https://www.wood-database.com/oregon-myrtle/

bythreads 4y ago

Great ressource!

hnlmorg 4y ago

Even though I don't suffer from trypophobia, I'm still finding the the Banksia Pod to be the stuff of nightmares. https://www.wood-database.com/banksia-pod/ https://www.wood-database.com/banksia-pod/

numbers 4y ago
Whoa that was a creepy one! You got me! I would run if I saw this
fian 4y ago
The Snugglepot and Cuddlepie series of children's books by May Gibbs feature Banksia men as the villains: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snugglepot_and_Cuddlepie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snugglepot_and_Cuddlepie

schmichael 4y ago

Wish I could submit entries as I love using Western Juniper (Juniperus occidentalis) for yard projects like garden boxes and swingsets. Great option for folks in the Pacific Northwest. It's effectively an invasive species in its natural habitat though because of forest mismanagement! https://www.snwwood.com/channels/website/documents/restorationjuniper.pdf https://www.snwwood.com/channels/website/documents/restorati... Update: found it! Submitting: https://www.wood-database.com/donating-wood-samples/ https://www.wood-database.com/donating-wood-samples/

Wistar 4y ago
Juniper is fantastic for raised beds. I usually get it at Dunn Lumber in the spring (Seattle area).
- galangalalgol 4y ago
  are we talking about juniperous virginiana? Beautiful tree, horrible allergen. It does decemt at resisting insects amd rot. But if you want that bed to outlive you use osage orange. Rip it green though or you'll spend a fortune in blades.
  - QuercusMax 4y ago
    Different species - occidentalis (meaning Western) vs virginiana (from Virginia), on different sides of the continent.

caramelcustard 4y ago

[insert the image of the front cover of the legendary "Identifying Wood: Accurate Results With Simple Tools (by R. Bruce Hoadley)"]

born-jre 4y ago

nitpick, website with footer and infinite scroll not good. :D

bergenty 4y ago
Does it have a footer? If they put all the footer information on the top I really like the setup on this site. Infinite scroll works really well in this situation?
xpe 4y ago
Interestingly, the creator is named Eric Meier -- not the same as Eric Meyer, known for his CSS expertise [1] [1] https://meyerweb.com/eric/css/ https://meyerweb.com/eric/css/
xpe 4y ago
I feel the same. There is a footer, but viewing it is quest that is always just out of reach.
throwaway742 4y ago
Infinite scroll is never good.

Jedd 4y ago

This is an excellent resource. I recently stumbled on an 'egg collection' for wood. This is almost literally what it sounds like - a huge collection of images of egg-shaped pieces of timber, that really shows off the colour and grain. A focus on Australian timbers, of course, but that's no bad thing as we're otherwise often poorly represented. https://ttit.id.au/eggpage/alleggs.htm https://ttit.id.au/eggpage/alleggs.htm

pengaru 4y ago
Bookmarked, thanks!
augustk 4y ago
> This is an excellent resource. ...for people living in U.S., Myanmar and Liberia.
- Jedd 4y ago
  Agreed that the parochial measurement system is frustrating - those filters could certainly benefit from an 'are you in the 95 percent?' toggle to flip to sane units. FWIW the entries for each timber do have the metric (Pa, metre, etc) figures shown in parenthesis after the US imperial figures.
steanne 4y ago
oh, interesting. clown faces are registered by recording the patterns on ceramic eggs. i suppose it's a convenient size/shape for samples in general.

metatranca 4y ago

Quick question probably not super related: do you know if something similar exists for floor tiles? I live in US and recently bought a house that has tiles from Italy, they look old but I love them and I would like to see if I can find them online(I already tried Lowes and similar).

eropple 4y ago

I use this site a ton to the point where I've bought both the hardcover and paperback versions of the book (hardcover now out of print due to COVID troubles). It's a fantastic resource for woodworkers.

davidcuddeback 4y ago
Duckduckgo supports "!wood" for searching the wood database. Makes quick work if looking something up from the address bar.

coolflower 4y ago

Suggest you an open source project that can use the picture of the wood to search for similar wood. https://milvus.io/ https://milvus.io/

osigurdson 4y ago

I suspect a lot of topic specific websites from the 90s just became wikipedia pages. However, there is evident value in highly curated content like this in a broad subject area that many people care about.

wheels 4y ago

This is my favorite practical tool for woodwork -- it tells you how much different woods will sag based on the properties of the load: https://woodbin.com/calcs/sagulator/ https://woodbin.com/calcs/sagulator/

rzarate 4y ago

I was expecting the link to take me to a landing page for a database implementation based on wood analogies.

JeanMo 4y ago
Same. But i was not disappointed. The world has enough databases :D

Fiahil 4y ago

Seems to be an amazing resource, but so sad that it's tailored for an American audience with an English-only catalogue and those unreadable units (wtf is a lbs/ft3, seriously ?). Edit: Ah ! They have meters and kg/m3 on each detail page, that's better !

akiselev 4y ago
The standard unit for purchasing lumber in the United States is a board-foot which is 1"x12"x12" or 1/12th of a cubic foot. Cubic feet is used because "board-foot" is too industry specific but it's still easy enough to convert when you need to calculate the weight of your woodworking/construction.

wigster 4y ago

three 'different' alders seem to have the same image

mjw_byrne 4y ago

Whilst randomly browsing on this site, I came across a piece of my own work! I made the chess piece pictured on the "kingwood" page. I _think_ that's the first time I've ever completely randomly stumbled upon myself online, i.e. with no intention whatsoever of actually looking up something I'd done. Nice little boost to start the day with :-)

vr46 4y ago

This site literally represents everything I love about the Internet and makes me long for the early 1990s, when people would gather and curate information for its own sake and their own satisfaction. I like Ian’s Shoelace Site too.

thadk 4y ago

I scraped the list of species from the main list page and put all of the woods into their phylogenetic tree: https://observablehq.com/@thadk/life https://observablehq.com/@thadk/life (desktops only; use a preset list: wood-database.com; linear) or here's the PNG: https://www.dropbox.com/s/8uq8i5gyenp3t4x/wood-radial3.png?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/8uq8i5gyenp3t4x/wood-radial3.png?d... Next step for someday is to replace phylotree.js with a D3 visualization on it which shows each image using the URL so you can see how the grains of the word relate according to the tree of trees.