Reddit reviews Understanding Wood: A Craftsman's Guide to Wood Technology
We found 19 Reddit comments about Understanding Wood: A Craftsman's Guide to Wood Technology. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Taunton Press
I recommend R. Bruce Hoadley's "Understanding Wood" (Here's an Amazon link < http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1561583588?pc_redir=1404667512&amp;robot_redir=1 > if you like 99% Invisible or Dan Carlin's podcasts, you can buy it through their sites*)
This is the book we were directed to when asking these types of questions at my Carpentry Trade School. This book will answer all of your questions, and the ones you haven't thought of yet.
Bonus: Meme from another of his books, haha. http://weknowmemes.com/2011/12/identifying-wood-yep-its-wood/
I have it. It is a really good book. If you can get past the internet joke, it's full of good information. I also have its sibling, Understanding Wood.
The Padres should order this book
[Understanding Wood](Understanding Wood: A Craftsman's Guide to Wood Technology https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1561583588/) is a terrific book for a woodworker who wants to... wait for it... understand wood.
The book starts with an applied look at the biology and life cycle of trees, explaining how this effects the material and goes through many chapters on specific properties of timber and how to apply the knowledge to woodworking. This is the kind of information that in my opinion is often much better presented in book form than what is available through YouTube, which is great for imparting technique, but not so much for providing a rigorous understanding of a subject.
Highly recommended for anyone who works with wood.
Links: Identifying Wood & Understanding Wood
R. Bruce Hoadley's Understanding Wood should be required reading, and not just for woodworkers.
For anything else, especially anything specific to joinery, I've found it's basically six of one, half a dozen of the other. A solid foundation of how wood behaves (which you'll get from Understanding Wood) will let you filter out almost all of the bad information yourself, and every book will have bad information. There's value in almost any book that looks like it has value.
The one set of books I'd recommend you definitely not get is Tage Frid Teaches Woodworking; that one is consistently garbage and guaranteed to end in personal injury. Unfortunately, it's also a set that gets recommended in threads like these in a lot of places, because Tage Frid was associated with Fine Woodworking (the magazine, not the practice) for almost three decades and therefore has a lot of visibility.
>From what you're saying, if I understand correctly, the best type of joinery on a table top is none? Just a slab?
Pretty much. Wood grows and shrinks across the grain, and tabletops tend to be wide-ish panels. You could see a 1/2" of difference in width change with the seasons on a decent-sized tabletop. It depends on the wood, and whether it's been flat-sawn or quarter-sawn. That amount of movement makes adding any sort of frame a difficult/impossible proposition, and is also the reason why you don't just glue down a tabletop to the legs/apron.
Here's a decent article about the topic: http://www.thisiscarpentry.com/2010/09/03/moisture-content-wood-movement/
Hoadley's book is fantastic and goes into great depth about this and other issues - but it's probably overkill if you're not milling your own lumber.
This one's kinda dry: http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Wood-Craftsmans-Guide-Technology/dp/1561583588 but contains tons of useful stuff. A few things I've learned:
Regardless of whether you take an apprenticeship or attend a college program, I would highly recommend expanding your knowledge on woodworking. There are five basic books I could not have survived without.
"Tage Frid Teaches Woodworking" by Tage Frid - This is for a box set of Tage Frid's three books. I bought them separate, but one link was easier than three links. You can buy these off of Amazon or eBay for quite cheap if you're a smart shopper.
"Understanding Wood: A Craftsman's Guide to Wood Technology" by R. Bruce Hoadley Edit: Recommended for a better understanding of the materials you're working with.
"Identifying Wood: Accurate Results With Simple Tools" by R. Bruce Hoadley Edit: Recommended because as a carpenter or woodworker, you should be able to identify most common wood types.
If you're just beginning and don't want to spend the $100ish it would cost for all of these, start with Tage's first book. "Tage Frid Teaches Woodworking: Joinery: Tools and Techniques". It will teach A LOT about design and wood in general, which will help you when applying for apprenticeships and/or carpentry/cabinet-making school.
It should be noted, these are textbooks for the most part and as such, read like one. If you're fresh out of high school, it should be easy to resume an old studying routine; if not, I suggest coffee, a chair that's comfortable and a notebook for note-taking. Seriously.
Your coasters are a prime example of wood shrinkage, there is nothing you can do except watch the crack get bigger and smaller according to the relative humidity. The size of the crack will change every day. See the cover of this book
The second edition is actually Understanding Wood. No joke. This guy is the wood master.
Drop some knowledge on him:
Hybrid Woodworking
Anarchists Tool Chest
Understanding Wood
I used to have the same problem. R. Bruce Hoadley has a great book on the topic that really helped me when I was board.
I do have a copy of Bruce Hoadley's excellent [book] (http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Wood-Craftsmans-Guide-Technology/dp/1561583588/) on wood, but this online tool is quick and easy once you understand how it works. I have even used it successfully to demonstrate to customers that the reason their doors are "defective" is because they humidity in their house in Alaska in winter is less than 20% and there is nothing I can do to eliminate the wood movement.
I learned through the book Understanding Wood by Bruce Hoadley. This author is famous for the "Yep, it's wood!" meme. There is a lot of good info for free online, but a solid, trusted, and researched book like this one deserves the inch of space it takes up on your shelf.
The more you know about the material science of wood, the better your projects will be. Good luck!
Wood technology student here.
Wood consists of millions of microscopic cells bound together by natural glues like lignin and cellulose. Wood also varies in density from one part to another, for example sapwood and heartwood. If you are going to do these experiments you should know that the results may vary by a great degree depending on what species or part of the tree you end up using. Balsa for example is one of the lowest density species and feels almost like Styrofoam. Ebony on the other hand is extremely dense. There is also a big difference between hard and softwood.
You could try contacting your local wood supplier and ask for a sample kit of different species, it will cost some money but it might be worth it.
If you are interested in buying litterature on the subject, I would recommend 'Understanding Wood' by R. Bruce Hoadlay.
Good luck with your wood torture!
If a picture is worth a thousand words then you just abridged Bruce Hoardley's [Identifying Wood] (https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Wood-Craftsmans-Guide-Technology/dp/1561583588) I wish more people understood that thin tangential cuts like the one above best illuminate the anatomical cellular structures necessary for accurate wood identification.
I would start by reading something like [this] (https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Wood-Craftsmans-Guide-Technology/dp/1561583588)
Then buy some small quantity of different varieties of wood available where you live, a few different finishing products and experiment.
This way you would have samples to show your prospective clients and a personal database of wood/finish combinations.
Jokes and memes aside, it's actually a great book. It's literally about the microscopic structure of wood. The author also has another classic, Understanding Wood: A Craftsman's Guide to Wood Technology, which has a few chapters on it. Great gift for woodworkers.