If you’ve ever walked past a catalpa tree, you probably noticed it for all the wrong reasons. The giant heart-shaped leaves. The long dangling bean pods that litter the ground all winter. The sticky flowers that cover your driveway every…
It’s not flashy. It’s not famous. But ask anyone who’s built a kayak or wrestled with marine plywood, and they’ll probably tell you Okoume is something special. The first time I came across Okoume, I was standing in a lumber…
I still remember the first time I held a piece of snakewood. I turned it over in my hands a few times and genuinely couldn’t believe it was real. It looked like someone had painted a snakeskin pattern onto a…
Western red cedar (Thuja plicata) is a lightweight, naturally rot-resistant softwood from the Pacific Northwest. Rich reddish-brown color, straight grain, exceptional outdoor durability — no chemical treatment needed. The go-to wood for siding, decking, fencing, and saunas. What Is Western…
Red oak is a strong, budget-friendly North American hardwood with a Janka hardness of 1,290 lbf. It has an open grain, warm reddish-brown color, and excellent workability. It’s one of the most widely available and affordable hardwoods you’ll find —…
Centrolobium spp. — what it is, how it works, and why it deserves more attention than it gets Open a freshly planed board of canarywood and you’ll understand immediately why people stop and stare. The colour isn’t one thing —…
What it is, how it behaves, and what nobody warns you about before your first piece I remember the first time I held a piece of bog oak. Picked it up expecting something like regular oak — and nearly dropped…
One of Southeast Asia’s toughest hardwoods — trusted by industry, built to last. If you’ve ever walked across a flatbed trailer deck that’s been hauling heavy freight for years and still feels rock solid, chances are you were standing on…
There’s a certain kind of wood that doesn’t try to impress you at first glance. It sits there, a little rough around the edges, maybe a bit resinous, and you think — alright, nothing special here. Then you work with…
Most woods are brown. Some are reddish. A few lean towards blonde. And then there’s Yellowheart — a wood that comes out of the Brazilian rainforest looking like it was stained with a highlighter marker, and somehow that’s completely natural.…
