I've had this book for almost 2 years and it is the best I've seen. It is very well written and very thorough. It begins with an explanation of the structure of wood at the cellular level, in some cases, in rather great depth. There are chapters on techinques for obtaining and preparing wood samples as well as a description of some of the necessary instruments (hand lens, microscope etc). The sections on identification are divided up into softwoods, hardwoods and tropical woods. I will agree that the section on tropical woods is not as deep as the other two sections, but I would say its in proportion to the chances of you happening up on a piece of rare tropical wood and having to identify it. I have sucessfully indentified dozens of woods using this book. Be advised that a microscope is definately needed when using this book, in my humble opinion. It doesnt have to be a megabuck model, but 100-250x would be very helpful. I would highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to go beyond the "if its brown, its walnut, if its white its maple" level, and get deeper into wood identification. ID-ing a chunk of wood is very satisfying and this book makes it possible!
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A good tool
"Written for the beginner and attempts to provide a self-taught approach."SUMMARY- if I don't know for sure what wood I'm working with, the wood database book or others might not be useful. This helps with finding a POSITIVE ID.If you need a classroom course on identifying wood, this is it.So, not difficult but as dry as a textbook could be.Shame on me for finding this available for free on the virtual library archives but with so many wood books to choose from, I wanted to buy the right one for my needs.After acquiring a bunch of beautiful hardwood logs, I'm addicted to cutting cookies but left with only the bark, grain patterns, odors, and huge pile of sawdust. No leaves. No small branching.Some species are obvious but plenty that i thought were obvious followed by doubt casted from knowing they are from the same trees but younger branch logs having different outer and inner growth patterns.In other words, the bark on the younger limbs can look like another species but it is from the same tree.Throw spalting (false hartwood) in the mix to make it even more challenging.My uncle has a masters degree in forestry and even he cannot give me answers to "what kind of wood is that?" When I send him pictures. Ultimately, it's a best guess type of thing unless you get samples under magnification or know the history of the tree.Leaving a review because it deserves 5 stars for what provides in the self-explained title. Expect to be that person on the cover picture if you're going to put this to use.You'll be taught to cut and collect samples and what to look for under a loupe or microscope.If you're a woodworker, you might find the wood database website's book more useful which may have a less scientific approach to collecting samples and more woodworking data such as shrinkage by species and in simplicity. Better of use if you already know what you're working with.Also in comparison, the wood database book is in full color, modern, and appealing. This book, well, the cover says it all.I've also printed multiple copies of the identification record sheet. There might be more modern books with a scientific approach to a positive ID but I'm thankful for this free full preview and find it very useful. Honestly, cheaper to buy than print but i have more stacks of white paper than green currency paper.
Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on July 30, 2023
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Top reviews from other countries
- Peter LReviewed in Canada on March 31, 2017
More data than you'll know what to do with
- GJGReviewed in the United Kingdom on November 21, 2015
Great informative, clear, detailed book on wood identification. Recommended.
