The Wood Guide: everything about wood, tree to table
The Wood Guide
Everything about wood, from tree to garden furniture: which species, how it behaves, how to look after it and what to buy. 243 guides in six sections — honest, with the downside included.
Where would you like to start?
Wood speciesFrom teak to spruce and from MDF to bamboo: every species described on its own, with the figures, the uses and the honest downside. Plus the comparisons that help you choose.100 guides · Teak wood · Douglas fir · Spruce
Understanding woodWhy wood swells and shrinks, what a durability class means, how to calculate in cubic metres and what woodworm does. The basics that explain everything.17 guides · What are the characteristics of wood? · The functioning of wood · What are the Sustainability Classes of Wood?
Care & finishingCleaning, oiling, staining and protecting — by wood species, by piece of furniture and by season. Plus what to do when something does go wrong.28 guides · Caring for wooden garden furniture · When Should You Use Stain or Wood Oil? · Impregnating wood
Choosing & buyingWhich size, which wood, which model: the buying guides for picnic tables, beer table sets, garden benches and garden furniture — with honest pros and cons.16 guides · Buying a picnic table · Choosing a beer table and beer bench · Which wood to use for a garden table?
Build it yourselfFrom a shed and a pergola to joints, gluing and tools. Building, working and repairing with wood, step by step.51 guides · Building a wooden garden shed · How do you build a wooden terrace on different types of ground? · How do you restore antique furniture?
Trees & forestsWhere the wood comes from: the trees of our region, the forest types of the world and what good forest management is.31 guides · Ten broadleaf trees and their wood · The Oak · The pine tree
Calculate, choose and compare
Ready for winter
- Getting garden furniture ready for winterGood news: your wooden garden furniture can cope with winter. What does cause damage is well-meant care done the wrong way.…
- Cracks and warping in garden furnitureA crack in furniture you've just bought is a shock. Usually it is simply wood being wood. Here is how to tell movement from…
- Caring for wooden garden furnitureLess work than you think: a few jobs a year, and above all knowing what not to do. By wood species, by season and by problem.
The most-read guides
- How much is 1 cubic metre of wood?Understanding wood
- Tackling woodwormUnderstanding wood
- What is Sheesham Wood?Wood species
- The pine treeTrees & forests
- Pine or spruce?Wood species
- What is HDF?Wood species
- When does wood expand?Understanding wood
- What is processed wood?Wood species
- The spruce treeTrees & forests
- HardwoodWood species
Wood knowledge from people who work with it every day
The Wood Guide is written by E-woodproducts in Lebbeke, Belgium: we deliver wooden garden furniture across Europe, and we write down what we see every day — including what doesn't go well.
Photos via Wikimedia Commons: Scots pine among flowering heather — Dominicus Johannes Bergsma, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Planed Douglas fir boards with clearly visible growth rings — Philipp Zinger, CC BY-SA 3.0 · End grain of an oak trunk showing growth rings, heartwood and sapwood — Friedrich Böhringer, CC BY-SA 3.0 AT · Wooden table and benches on a patio among potted plants — Acabashi, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Hand with hammer and chisel carving letters into a wooden plank — Frédérique Voisin-Demery, CC BY 2.0 · Beech (Fagus sylvatica) in full leaf — Jean-Pol GRANDMONT, CC BY 3.0