100 Woods: A Guide to Popular Timbers of the World

Rating:
Summary: Don't try that at home
Review: A caution seems in order. Over the millennia many tools have been developed for working wood, but razors are not among them. Using a razor on a dense wood will result in "wood marks" on the razor, that is, in the best case. It can go horribly wrong.

The only reasons that only "minor marks" can be seen here is that the haze of sanding marks and sanding dust overlies everything.

On the positive side the book is well printed and bound, and of course wood is so beautiful that even the treatment doled out here can not obscure its beauty entirely. Somebody who never saw wood or does not own any proper woodworking tools may be impressed by this book. However such a person would do a lot better with the "Good Wood Handbook" by Jackson & Day (cheaper too!).

Rating:
Summary: Don't try that at home
Review: A caution seems in order. Over the millennia many tools have been developed for working wood, but razors are not among them. Using a razor on a dense wood will result in "wood marks" on the razor, that is, in the best case. It can go horribly wrong.

The only reasons that only "minor marks" can be seen here is that the haze of sanding marks and sanding dust overlies everything.

On the positive side the book is well printed and bound, and of course wood is so beautiful that even the treatment doled out here can not obscure its beauty entirely. Somebody who never saw wood or does not own any proper woodworking tools may be impressed by this book. However such a person would do a lot better with the "Good Wood Handbook" by Jackson & Day (cheaper too!).

Rating:
Summary: 100 Woods : A Guide to Popular Timbers of the World
Review: I found this book most useful. It describes popular woods of the world in an easy way with a clear format. Unlike like the other reviewer I found the photographs were clear and understandable. (Any minor marks visible on a couple of the wood surfaces are caused by the razor cutting during preparation not sanding!). For anyone who is looking for an excellent workshop or desktop companion this is a book I would rate.

Rating:
Summary: Waste of Wood
Review: This book was printed beautifully, and expensively in color. Unfortunately nobody thought to prepare the woods before photographs were taken: the wood surfaces were not cut or planed but sanded (truly horrible!). I would be ashamed to own a copy of this book: it definitely is a waste of the wood which went into making the paper it was printed on.

A great deal of the information in this book can also be found in Aidan Walker's 'Identifying wood', a more modest effort which at least is modestly priced. Anyone really interested may be referred to R.Bruce Hoadley's books.