Identifying Wood: Accurate Results with Simple Tools

Before I bought this book, I would look at something and wonder, "Is this wood?". Now, I always know. This book will show you how to tell wood apart from materials such as metal, plastic, dirt and flesh. You don't need to be an expert, anyone can do it. Get this book and go find out if something is made of wood or not!!

My whole life I've been asking myself the same questions. What is my bed made out of? What are those things in the forest? What fuels fire? This book answers ALL of those questions and more! The answer....WOOD! THOSE THINGS ARE MADE OF WOOD! Life finally makes sense thanks to this book. It will take you to a new level of enlightenment.

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!

For those interested in identifying wood this book is a steal! This is not the only introductory text on the topic, but it sure is the most readable and the most accessible. The color pictures of the end grain are unparalled in any other book. The text is crystal clear and well paced. If this book has a flaw it is the focus on North American woods, at the cost of tropical woods, but you cannot have everything.Actually I began with an understatement: this book would be a steal at twice the price!

If you're interested in trees and identifying wood this is the book for you. The book starts with tree structure and moves on to characteristics of various woods and divides them into subcatagories. You'll need at least a 10x magnifier, at most a microscope with 250x capability. A must for woodturners and antique lovers.