user 19915
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Does anyone know where i can purchase identification blocks of wood preferable in the uk
Alan
Alan
identification blocks of wood
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user 19915
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thank.s for the link but i did not expect it to be £63 lol
Alan
Alan
Alexam
Bandsaw Boxmaker
Lots of books on wood identification. Just Google it
Malcolm
Malcolm
I went to Wentwood Timber, near Caldicot to get offcuts for the same reason - it's not so far, maybe next time you're headed along the M4? Paid two or three pounds for each piece, and they were big enough to plane and get a feel of. It's a great place to visit, lots of wonderful pieces of timber planed on one side so you can see that you're getting.
Not actually blocks but nice and portable - the book "What Wood is That" by Herbert Edlin has slips of 40 different veneers in it and is less than the sample kit, at least it was when I bought my copy for £4...
https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_no ... that+edlin
https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_no ... that+edlin
Glynne
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The vagaries of imagery, printing and digital images, mean that photos can be sorely lacking colour-wise (really terribly bad sometimes) so there's nothing like having a bit of wood in your hand to compare to. But there's still a big problem: any small sample of a natural substance is only so much help.
Purpose-made samples presumably are as typical as possible to make them most applicable, but this means you're stuffed if the piece you're trying to ID is atypical in some way (and there are numerous ways it can be). Or just cut differently. Or in the round and not a flat board.
Purpose-made samples presumably are as typical as possible to make them most applicable, but this means you're stuffed if the piece you're trying to ID is atypical in some way (and there are numerous ways it can be). Or just cut differently. Or in the round and not a flat board.
Glynne
Established Member
Couldn't agree more. Several of my samples are simply different cuts of the same timber and some of the samples bear little if any resemblance to actual boards I have.ED65":yobzc8hd said:
To be honest I very rarely refer to them and some are woods I haven't heard of anywhere else.
Ttrees
Iroko loco!
I wonder if the end grain is similar on vastly different samples with the same grain orientation
under magnification ?
I don't have Bruce Hoadley's identifying wood yet, no doubt its explained within it though, so you might find those
or at least some samples useful in the future for ID if you have a commission.
Tom
under magnification ?
I don't have Bruce Hoadley's identifying wood yet, no doubt its explained within it though, so you might find those
or at least some samples useful in the future for ID if you have a commission.
Tom
custard
Established Member
The Edlin book that Andy mentioned is well worth looking out for. As is "The Identification Of Woods Used in Antique Furniture" by the ACC, this book has much larger wood samples, but is skewed towards antique timbers. Back in the day every veneer merchant and quite a few timber yards gave away sample sheets and blocks as per the photo below. I've still got quite a few, and it's astonishing how widely and consistently available many timbers used to be in both veneer and solid form. Not just exotics like Rio Rosewood or Burmese Teak, but European timbers like Yew, Pear, Sycamore, Sweet Chestnut, Elm, English Cherry, Apple, Hornbeam, Box, Laburnum, English Walnut, and many many others. You can still get them all today, but you really have to hunt to find them, and availability will be temporary and sporadic at best. Today's timber market, even by comparison to just twenty or thirty years ago, is a bit of a desert, we're now dominated by just six or seven hardwood species, and the majority of timber yards today will only ever stock this very limited range.
Two books that are absolute musts are The Handbook Of Hardwoods, sadly out of print but still widely available (get the latest version you can by the way, the one in the photo is the one to aim for, and also look out for it's "Softwoods" companion). And of course the Bruce Hoadley book. Hoadley is a fascinating read, but it's strongly biased towards the North American user, plus as a practical method of identification, the end grain shaving plus microscope route isn't going to be that viable for most people.
And if you've fallen deep into the "world woods" rabbit hole, then Adam Bowett's magisterial "Woods in British Furniture Making 1400-1900" is another must read.
However, fascinating as all these books are, as a practical method of identifying timbers none of them really cut it. There's so much variability within individual species that you need to look at scores or hundreds of different boards before you start to recognise the defining common characteristics. And photos or tiny samples can never really help you assimilate features like weight or fragrance or working qualities.
I thought the "lol" verdict on the £63 price for the timber collection was interesting. There was a similar thread about a year ago and I subsequently thought about offering something similar for sale, but when I realised I'd have to charge well over £100 per set (okay, I was planning on including some very rare items) and even then I wouldn't really be making much of a profit, I dropped the idea as a non starter. In a way that's a shame, as different temperate zone timbers drop off people's radar it'll become even easier for timber yards to feel there isn't the demand or need to broaden their product range.
Two books that are absolute musts are The Handbook Of Hardwoods, sadly out of print but still widely available (get the latest version you can by the way, the one in the photo is the one to aim for, and also look out for it's "Softwoods" companion). And of course the Bruce Hoadley book. Hoadley is a fascinating read, but it's strongly biased towards the North American user, plus as a practical method of identification, the end grain shaving plus microscope route isn't going to be that viable for most people.
And if you've fallen deep into the "world woods" rabbit hole, then Adam Bowett's magisterial "Woods in British Furniture Making 1400-1900" is another must read.
However, fascinating as all these books are, as a practical method of identifying timbers none of them really cut it. There's so much variability within individual species that you need to look at scores or hundreds of different boards before you start to recognise the defining common characteristics. And photos or tiny samples can never really help you assimilate features like weight or fragrance or working qualities.
I thought the "lol" verdict on the £63 price for the timber collection was interesting. There was a similar thread about a year ago and I subsequently thought about offering something similar for sale, but when I realised I'd have to charge well over £100 per set (okay, I was planning on including some very rare items) and even then I wouldn't really be making much of a profit, I dropped the idea as a non starter. In a way that's a shame, as different temperate zone timbers drop off people's radar it'll become even easier for timber yards to feel there isn't the demand or need to broaden their product range.
Attachments
Ttrees
Iroko loco!
Thanks once again Custard,
I was hoping to get Hoadley's identifying wood, but as you say its a bit geared towards American timbers.
I thought it was more of a theory book, but it sounds like you need to have a benchmark of examples
so you can refer back to it to get a positive ID on the species.
I was looking for a video (I think it was a video) where there was a device being implemented at airports or harbors
that could ID any species with quite accurate results, by a person who is not in the field whatsoever.
The only thing I found while quickly looking for this is just one page.
The device is a handheld unit plugged into a laptop.
It is called a NIRS scanner.
I wonder if it will catch on ?
I shall be looking out for those other books now
as it would be good for a wood scavenger like me
Cheers
Tom
I was hoping to get Hoadley's identifying wood, but as you say its a bit geared towards American timbers.
I thought it was more of a theory book, but it sounds like you need to have a benchmark of examples
so you can refer back to it to get a positive ID on the species.
I was looking for a video (I think it was a video) where there was a device being implemented at airports or harbors
that could ID any species with quite accurate results, by a person who is not in the field whatsoever.
The only thing I found while quickly looking for this is just one page.
The device is a handheld unit plugged into a laptop.
It is called a NIRS scanner.
I wonder if it will catch on ?
I shall be looking out for those other books now
as it would be good for a wood scavenger like me Cheers
Tom
Also, don't forget the Hobbit House database of photos. Lots of photos, including end grain, of a really wide range. Good for showing the variation within a species, board to board.
http://www.hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/
http://www.hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/
Notwithstanding all of the posts above, one source may be pen blanks. It depends a bit on what you are using the blocks for- is it to look at what works well together so that you can buy a board of those ones, or to identify what you have in a box of mixed offcuts?
If it is either of those purposes, then as custard states above, you can probably cover 85% with less than a dozen species. You could risk not getting an offcut of cuban mahogany in a mixed box.
If it is either of those purposes, then as custard states above, you can probably cover 85% with less than a dozen species. You could risk not getting an offcut of cuban mahogany in a mixed box.
Chrispy
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user 19915
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yes please leave me know what i owe you thank you
in boxed you my postal add Alan
in boxed you my postal add Alan
I've remembered and tracked down another book to mention, which even Custard hasn't got.
It was published as "The American Woods, exhibited by actual specimens and with copious explanatory text" by Romeyn Beck Hough in 1888-1913. There were fourteen large volumes. They contained detailed botanical descriptions, identification keys, and actual samples of the woods, showing end grain, side grain and transverse grain. Naturally, it's a rare and expensive set! (The Edlin book I mentioned before is like a miniature version of this, for only 40 species. )
Taschen published a modern picture book, just of the plates - over 700 pages of them - in various editions, which is in print as either The Wood Book or The Woodbook. It's a reasonable price but still a bit of a brick, and let's face it, most of the 250+ species are never going to crop up in your local timber merchant's.
However, there are scans of the full set, available at the Internet Archive. This link should give you most of them or you can click on the author's name for the rest. All downloadable in various formats, and taking up no space at all on your bookshelves.
https://archive.org/search.php?query=cr ... 924%22&and[]=subject%3A%22Wood%22&and[]=collection%3A%22americana%22
It was published as "The American Woods, exhibited by actual specimens and with copious explanatory text" by Romeyn Beck Hough in 1888-1913. There were fourteen large volumes. They contained detailed botanical descriptions, identification keys, and actual samples of the woods, showing end grain, side grain and transverse grain. Naturally, it's a rare and expensive set! (The Edlin book I mentioned before is like a miniature version of this, for only 40 species. )
Taschen published a modern picture book, just of the plates - over 700 pages of them - in various editions, which is in print as either The Wood Book or The Woodbook. It's a reasonable price but still a bit of a brick, and let's face it, most of the 250+ species are never going to crop up in your local timber merchant's.
However, there are scans of the full set, available at the Internet Archive. This link should give you most of them or you can click on the author's name for the rest. All downloadable in various formats, and taking up no space at all on your bookshelves.
https://archive.org/search.php?query=cr ... 924%22&and[]=subject%3A%22Wood%22&and[]=collection%3A%22americana%22
user 19915
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by Romeyn Beck Hough in 1888-1913 this one www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/BookDetailsP ... eyn%2Bbeck
