Understanding Wood
R. Bruce Hoadley

Reviewed by:

Ken Greenberg

It’s hard to build things out of wood without understanding its basic nature. Wood not only changes in the transition from tree to board, it changes throughout the life of what you build. A good understanding of wood’s nature is essential to preventing long-term disasters (splits, warping, fractured joints). Probably no one understands as much about this as Hoadley. This is a basic reference, not light reading, but when you need to look something up it’s probably here.