The Way Wood Works — What Every Woodworker Needs to Know About Wood.

If you are a novice woodworker, this is stuff you absolutely need to know before you cut another board. If you’re a master craftsman, you know it well enough to understand that a quick review never hurts. And if you’re somewhere in between, this may fill in some important gaps. What I present here is the very foundation of wood technology; the way wood works as a construction material and the basic concepts you must keep in mind to get it to work for you.

Novice or master, please understand that these are the just the basics. Wood is an incredibly complex material, more than I could explain in a zillion videos. Additionally, there are hundreds of wood species each with different botanical, physical, and mechanical properties. If you would like to explore wood’s characteristics in depth, or just look up the properties of a single species, there is an amazing book that you should have. “The Wood Handbook: Wood as an Engineering Material” is published by the United States Forest Products Laboratory as a FREE service for those of us who rely upon wood and wood products for our livelihood and well-being. You can download a PDF copy free from our store at https://workshopcompanion.selz.com/ca… or you can get it straight from the USFPS web site at https://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/fp…. If you prefer a condensed version aimed at craftsmen and woodworkers – and if you’d like to support this channel – consider my book “Wood and Woodworking Materials” available here: https://workshopcompanion.selz.com/it… .