World Woods in Color

Rating:
Summary: Very Useful Guide in a Compact & Concise Format
Review: I found this work particularly useful in designing a woodworking project as a novice who wanted to make something beautiful and lasting. Selecting hardwoods for my project was a major undertaking because of high expectations I have of the woods from which I built my dining table. I wanted beauty, durability, and contrast; at the same time needing compatibility among the five different woods I used. While the book has its critics, as a lay woodworker, it served my purposes admirably. The concise information featured for every wood was extremely useful. If the book sees a new edition, I hope a competent editor will preclude the many minor grammar errors, typos, and several inconsistencies I noted. The text fails to be consistent in always providing data critical to my own project: not all entries provide information about the stability of the wood in service.

Rating:
Summary: Very Useful Guide in a Compact & Concise Format
Review: I found this work particularly useful in designing a woodworking project as a novice who wanted to make something beautiful and lasting. Selecting hardwoods for my project was a major undertaking because of high expectations I have of the woods from which I built my dining table. I wanted beauty, durability, and contrast; at the same time needing compatibility among the five different woods I used. While the book has its critics, as a lay woodworker, it served my purposes admirably. The concise information featured for every wood was extremely useful. If the book sees a new edition, I hope a competent editor will preclude the many minor grammar errors, typos, and several inconsistencies I noted. The text fails to be consistent in always providing data critical to my own project: not all entries provide information about the stability of the wood in service.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent full color domestic & import wood reference guide
Review: I've look at many books on wood but most are very technical and provide more information than is typically needed by the avid woodworker. Each page in this book covers a separate wood, with a very nice 5-1/4" by 3-3/4" color picture followed by commercial name, other names, distribution, general discription, mechanical properties, seasoning, working properties, durability, uses and any important notes. Of particular interest to the average woodworker are the sections on mechanical properties, seasoning and working properties. Here one will learn such things as ease of steam bending, whether it exudes resin, checking and twisting as it seasons, ease of use with power tools such as blunting effects, sanding, and any cautions on nailing, screwing, gluing or finishing. This is my one concise and constantly referenced, single source for all the information I need on the different woods I use or would every use in my shop. Can't recommend it enough.

Rating:
Summary: The best, concise summary of every wood in the world.
Review: I've look at many books on wood but most are very technical and provide more information than is typically needed by the avid woodworker. Each page in this book covers a separate wood, with a very nice 5-1/4" by 3-3/4" color picture followed by commercial name, other names, distribution, general discription, mechanical properties, seasoning, working properties, durability, uses and any important notes. Of particular interest to the average woodworker are the sections on mechanical properties, seasoning and working properties. Here one will learn such things as ease of steam bending, whether it exudes resin, checking and twisting as it seasons, ease of use with power tools such as blunting effects, sanding, and any cautions on nailing, screwing, gluing or finishing. This is my one concise and constantly referenced, single source for all the information I need on the different woods I use or would every use in my shop. Can't recommend it enough.

Rating:
Summary: The best shop reference currently available
Review: If you are serious about working with wood, this is the best reference book I've yet encountered. I still run into wood supplier lists that have names not listed by Lincoln, but he catches most of them. Chances are, the dealer used a nickname and Lincoln calls the missing wood by its more proper name. Occasionally, a fairly common name such as Australian lacewood is missing - a sign that a new version should be released. The color photos are fairly close to the real thing.

Rating:
Summary: The best shop reference currently available
Review: If you are serious about working with wood, this is the best reference book I've yet encountered. I still run into wood supplier lists that have names not listed by Lincoln, but he catches most of them. Chances are, the dealer used a nickname and Lincoln calls the missing wood by its more proper name. Occasionally, a fairly common name such as Australian lacewood is missing - a sign that a new version should be released. The color photos are fairly close to the real thing.

Rating:
Summary: A nessecary item....
Review: If you ever wondered what a certain wood looked kie, here is the answer book. A nessacary item for every cabinetmaker.

Rating:
Summary: Useful and beautiful
Review: Pick it up, thumb through it, and enjoy the well-printed pictures of each wood sample. There are over 250 of them, all unique, all showing the characteristic grain and coloring of the species. The eye-candy is just the icing on a very substantial cake, however.

Suppose you cut down an apple tree and decide to keep the lumber - do you season in the round, or cut it first? How long will it take? As well as the right way to season each wood, this gives its resistance to insect attack and special considerations in machining, nailing, veneering, and gluing. Only so much can be said in one page, but Lincoln covers the basics in a systematic way.

Appendices cross-reference the common and latin names, and list suppliers and organizations that provide information. Those tables are helpful but weak. Suppliers come and go too fast for that list to have lasting value. The "table of uses" of each species in each application is also helpful but limited. Veneer is not mentioned in that table, even though Lincoln discusses it elsewhere. The indices could also handle conflicting names better. I just gained access to some fresh-cut American linden, and wanted to know how to season it. The word 'linden' has only one index entry, even though the name is applied to several species, and that entry doesn't match the linden I have. I was supposed to look for 'basswood.' Now I know, but lists of synonyms would have helped. More information about each wood would have been useful, too: which woods create dust with breathing hazards? What about the percent change, radially and tangentially, during drying? How does the appearance change when quartersawed?

Still, the book's strengths far outweigh its weaknesses. It's just pretty to look at, for one thing, but it has good information as well. I'm happy with it.

//wiredweird

Rating:
Summary: Overdue for a revision
Review: The concept of this book is a good one: a large color picture accompanied by half a page of text. Unfortunately this was not well executed. Leaving aside the text and ignoring the callous mistreatment of scientific names a minimum requirement for a book of this kind is to have proper color pictures. Three steps are involved: 1) the correct wood; 2) exposing a characteristic face of the wood; and 3) proper surfacing. Although there are a number of quite good pictures in this book, it is an easy matter to find major transgressions against each of these three steps. For example the picture given for pink ivory could be replaced by a bit of copper plating for a gain in accuracy. It is impossible to tell if there is a single correct picture for a mahogany (in the wider sense) since no diagnostic faces are shown (however, at least one of these is definitely wrong). For a capital offense against proper surfacing see balsa. All in all something like 40% of the pictures must be replaced for this book to work. This book has the potential to be a handy reference, but a lot of overdue homework must be done first.

Rating:
Summary: AN ASTRONOMICAL COLLECTION OF INFORMATION.
Review: The title speaks for itself. The collection of woods displayed in this book are shown with quality and class. The information available on each wood is amazing. The quality of the book itself is of the best I have seen, thick paper, exceptional color photographs and type that is clearly legible. If you are after pictures, information on names, uses, working properties, geographical distribution and much more buy the book, you will not regret it. The time you will save hunting for all this information will recover the price paid.