Centennial Edition: Wood Handbook: Wood as an Engineering Material

by Forest Products Laboratory

Summarizes information on wood as an engineering mate- rial. Presents properties of wood and wood-based products of particular concern to the architect and engineer. Includes discussion of designing with wood and wood-based prod- ucts along with some pertinent uses.

Genres: Woodwork, Reference

508 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1935

Reviews

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

FPL has been putting out this book for years & keeps renaming it as they add to it, but the basics & much of the text is the same. I got this edition (1980) a reprint of the 1974 edition, shortly after it came out & was blown away by how much practical information it contained, even though I didn't understand or really want to know some of the technical details.

Most of it is very readable, if somewhat dry, text about commercially available woods & their properties in respect to usage. If you buy elm, just what species are you getting? There are also tables on durability, density, & working properties. The best picture I've ever seen showing how wood dries depending on where it is cut from the log is bookmarked (page 89) in my copy. Great stuff even for a lowly woodworker.

This edition doesn't have a great section on microscopy, but it does go into cell structure & gives some great tables on the various properties of clear wood that I found very helpful.

I keep it handy & refer to it fairly often. For Xmas 2012, I got the updated 2010, Centennial edition.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have "The Encyclopedia Of Wood" (Paperback) (isbn 0806988908) & have used it for decades. Great book. This is an update of that with all the same chapters plus a lot more. For instance, the wood microscopy section has been updated by R. Bruce Hoadley. I have 2 of his books on the subject, but finding a condensed version here is a huge help. There are updated sections, for instance the first one is now "Wood As A Sustainable Building Material" while the second (first in my old edition) is "Characteristics & Availability of Commercially Important Woods"

My paperback edition also comes with a CD that contains the entire book in a PDF file. All of this book is available for free as PDF files from the FPL site here:
http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/products/pub...

I read quite a bit of this on the PC at different times, but it was nice to hold, too. It's much easier to flip back & forth in a paper book. It's not a book to read cover to cover, although I found a lot of interesting updates throughout. I especially appreciated being able to search the PDF version for specifics.

[Joe Defazio]

The 2010 edition of the Wood Handbook can be downloaded as an ebook, free, from the US Forest Service, Forest Products Laboratory website:
https://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/products/pu...

[Kim Zinkowski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Published in 1974, this is an invaluable reference for the wood worker.