Aidan Walker
Published 1989
Hardcover 185 pages
AUD$60.00
ISBN: 0816021597

The Encyclopedia of Wood is both an informative and a humane source on the world's most versatile and prized woods. Perhaps most useful is its extensive directory of wood, profiling the most popular commercial timbers, in the order of around 150 species. Within each profile you will find a visual sample, descriptions on its uses, appearance, and where it is most abundant geographically, as well as a useful key illustrating its various mechanical properties. The format of this key is specifically designed in a universal format so that it can be used as a comparative device across the range of timbers in the directory.

The forward has been written by accomplished furniture designer and educator in craftsmanship John Makepeace, whose rich passion for timber moulds the ethos of the book, being the appreciation of wood as not only the world’s most versatile resource, but the conservation aspect of this resource as endangerment looms. Considerable explanation has been devoted to the compositional aspects of wood, the phases and implications of harvesting it, and the workings of the industry as it operates today.