"For all things wood!"

September 21, 2015 10:22 AM

We've heard before about the Wood Database, which lists detailed information ranging from crushing strength to odor to sustainability for close to 200 different types of wood. But now, the project has a beautifully simple Pinterest page as well. You can browse images of burled wood, striped wood, golden wood, and even pink and purple wood - and every image links back to the database, if you want to find out more.

Origin of the Wood Database: Woodworker Eric Meier had checked out some wood identification books at the library, and wanted a way to organize all of the most helpful data into a single reference file for himself. Over time, he expand his original small wood database into a much larger and more comprehensive online database.

posted by showbiz_liz (16 comments total)

Yeah, so, my dad has a wood collection. (He used to do a lot of woodworking as a hobby, but in recent years it's mostly fallen by the wayside in favor of his rekindled interest in cycling.) But yeah, this wood collection takes up approximately 1/3 of the two-car garage (which leaves a little over 1/3 for work bench, table saws, and all kinds of neat machines that offer you new and exciting ways to remove your own fingers, and a little shy of 1/3 for bikes and bike parts and bikes in various stages of assembly). He's got wood in there you can't even get anymore because it was harvested from now-protected rainforests back in the 70s, he's got wood of all different colors and patterns, and he's got wood that's been sitting longer than I've been alive waiting for a project that's worth using that very expensive piece of wood on. Back when I was very, very young I remember he took an overnight trip somewhere many hours driving distance away just to buy a special piece of wood from special wood guy. Every once in a while growing up he'd drag me or my brother out to the garage to point at pieces of wood and tell us about them and how they are different/more special than other pieces of wood and we'd be like "yes dad, ok it's wood, yes very nice wood, mom says dinner's been ready for 20 minutes now and I'm cold and hungry, dad can we please go inside now."

Anyway, like I said he hasn't been doing much woodworking in the last few years because he's been enjoying his biking too much, but this weekend my brother and I got a group text from our mom that said this:

I'm about to send you guys a slew of pictures. Please tolerate them. Your dad wants me to send them and ask you a question about a piece of wood.

And thus followed 12 pictures of a hunk of burl wood from a birch tree that fell over in the front yard last year. The thing is the size of a toddler. My dad wanted to know if he should carve down into it and make a bowl or if he should carve it into something. It's a pretty cool hunk of wood and I think my dad's creative leanings should be encouraged, so I said he should carve it into whatever he thinks he sees in it. Got a text reply from my mom:

He thinks he sees a turtle. I think I see dementia setting in.

(Confirmed that it's been dark and rainy out lately and that's why dad's meditating on this wood instead of out riding his bike.)

Anyway, after this text conversation on Saturday, my dad called me yesterday to talk about the burl some more. Talked to me about the burl for 30 minutes. What do I think he should do with the burl? Do I see the turtle in it he sees? Did he tell me about his new lathe? The lathe he got specifically to turn this burl but now that he's been living with the burl for a while he thinks he should preserve its shape? Etc.

Anyway, wood is pretty important to him. I have forwarded my dad this link to the wood database in hopes that he can use it to channel some of this frenetic burl energy.

Bonus pic of my dad and his burl friend.
posted by phunniemee at 10:48 AM on September 21, 2015 [12 favorites]

But does it conclusively calculate how much wood it takes to get one sheep?
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:49 AM on September 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

Genji, if you're spending more than one wood to get a sheep, you're being had.
posted by phunniemee at 10:51 AM on September 21, 2015 [3 favorites]

Bonus pic of my dad and his burl friend.

I think I see a frog and not a turtle, also what a charming story
posted by showbiz_liz at 10:59 AM on September 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

This is fucking hot.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 11:16 AM on September 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

If you just cut off that bottom piece I think you'd have a pretty kickass potato
posted by theodolite at 11:25 AM on September 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

Some years ago, at an auction, I discovered the 6 boxes of same-bound books were a late-19th Century/early 20th Century encyclopaedia of wood, richly detailed and illustrated with thin slices of wood to illustrate color and grain. As you do when you discover something cool at an auction, you try to pretend it's nothing special and not attract interest to it while tamping down any excitement.

That collection (not being the rarest and most special of wood reference books) only went for many thousands of dollars. It's never a good feeling when the auctioneer factors in absentee bids and starts the bidding at 10x your upper limit. I had to settle for a modern guidebook to wood identification with nice pictures and a pricetag well within my budget. It's fun and useful, but I still want that turn-of-the-century collection of wood reference books!
posted by julen at 11:27 AM on September 21, 2015 [3 favorites]

It looks marginally less potacular from other angles.

No more like a turtle, however.
posted by phunniemee at 11:28 AM on September 21, 2015

When I lived in Memphis, I was acquainted with a guy who, while not having quite the wood collection of phunniemee's dad, did pretty well in that regard. Not a lot of really exotic stuff, but he got quite a lot just from driving around and picking up bits from trees that had been chopped down or trimmed. He never came right out and said so, but when a big windstorm came through town and blew down a number of substantial trees (due in part to Memphis' relatively thin soil layer over a clay substrate, resulting in a lot of trees not having very deep roots), it was probably like a decade's worth of Christmases to him.

Also, I would like a coffin made of purpleheart, because reasons.
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:32 PM on September 21, 2015

My experience with the beautiful Pinterest page is that if I try to see any of it, a screen obscures everything and gives me a "login" or "continue" button. The "continue" button goes to a login screen.
posted by Wolfdog at 1:39 PM on September 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

Yes that is the magic of pinterest. Grab one of the crapaccounts from bugmenot to make it go away.
posted by phunniemee at 1:41 PM on September 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

Obligatory
posted by Dr. Twist at 1:48 PM on September 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

I'm in the midst of commissioning a gaming table from some friends of mine at a local custom furniture shop, which has me jumping right into the deep end of looking up different pictures of unusual woods like Cocobolo and Bubinga and Bloodwood and then I get to go to the workshop this weekend and see all the bits and saws and and and SO EXCITED
posted by FatherDagon at 2:56 PM on September 21, 2015

Wonderful Database. Years ago, I collected from various sources a lot of this type data on common wood. My data also included caloric values for wood because my main interest was to find the best wood to bank a wood stove with at night.
posted by Jumpin Jack Flash at 11:26 PM on September 21, 2015

I've gotten a renewed interest in woodworking, which is sort of an age-related hazard for men, it seems, but I've also got three kids and a house and not really much time to spend on actual woodworking. So I sate my cravings by looking at YouTube videos and fantasizing about all the cool stuff I could make, were I not otherwise occupied with Ikea furniture and putting in moulding. This will feed my addiction nicely, thank you!
posted by Harald74 at 12:06 AM on September 22, 2015

I have, like, less than zero interest in the specific gravity of wood. I do not even know what specific gravity means. And yet mysteriously, I have clicked like 20 pages in this database, and read all the details on them.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:19 PM on September 23, 2015 [1 favorite]