What Wood is That: A Manual of Wood Identification with 40 Actual Wood Specimens

by Herbert L. Edlin

Viking, 1969. Hardcover with dustjacket. A manual of wood identification with forty actual wood specimens, An essential book for any woodworker. Great idea, well written and well organized. The way that the 40 samples are bound into the book is ingenious.

Genres: Reference, Woodwork, Nonfiction, Nature

160 pages, Hardcover

First published May 23, 1969

About the author

Herbert Edlin was an English forester. Born in 1913, he attended Manchester Grammar School, then studied forestry at Edinburgh and Oxford Universities. After managing rubber plantations in Malaysia, he spent five years in the New Forest of Hampshire, planning timber harvesting, raising young trees, and replanting cleared land. After 1945 he edited technical publications for the Forestry Commission, compiled guides to forest parks in Scotland and Wales, and made first-hand studies of woodland crafts. Widely travelled, he was the author of twenty-seven books on outdoor subjects.

Reviews

[Jon Capota · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing and interactive manual on everything wood. From the cell make up, biological benefits to forests, how to harvest, prepare and season wood, and identifying wood grains. Outstanding! Comes with real samples inside the book too.

[Riley · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first five pages constitute a fold-out collection of actual wood samples! Ever wondered what zebrawood looks or feels like? So rad! Makes me wish my American History textbook came with samples of civil war uniforms and a plug of Jamestown tobacco.

Also it is a rather awesome bit of carpentry reference material.

[Tricia · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my very favorite books, ever. I have an older edition and the wood samples are still in great shape. You can smell and touch each sample (and most importantly, wet them to see what the grain will look like stained or sealed).