open main page here with limited thumbnails
open main page here with ALL thumbnails
SITE MAP --- what you can find on this site:
(that is, in ADDITION to the more than 16,000 unique pictures of wood, plus enlargements)
- - - - - the primary pages - - - - -
main page Text describing the contents of the site and then a set of thumbnails of the major woods represented on the site. Next to each wood name is a set of numbers (a, b, c) that show how many (a) unique wood pics, (b) enlargements, and (c) enlargements of enlargements, are present on the page for that wood. About 2/3rds of the woods represented on the site are listed on the main page with only a text link and no thumbnail, so as to prevent the main page from taking forever to load for those people who have a slow connection. The main page contains most of the woods for which this site has substantial information.
big page --- a version of the main page but with thumbnails of every wood on the site --- if you have a high speed link, you might want to use this page instead of the normal main page, but if you only have a modem connection, forget it; this one takes forever to load since it has over 600 thumbnail images.
2nd page --- a page with thumbnails of woods that are secondary to those on the main page, and for which I have more than one pic. These woods are represented on the main page, but only with a link, not a thumbnail image (but if you use the big page, these 2nd page thumbnails DO show up, along with those of the 3rd page as well).
3rd page --- a page with thumbnails of woods that are secondary to those on the main page, and for which I have only a single pic and no idea whether it is really representative of the species. These woods are represented on the main page, but only with a link, not a thumbnail image (but if you use the big page, these 3rd page thumbnails DO show up, along with those of the 2nd page as well).
acknowledgements --- my thanks to all the people who have helped this site by donating information, pictures, wood samples, and many of whom have provided helpful and informative discussions of why it is they believe I don't know my ass from an arrdvark.
Alphabetical navigation: near the top and bottom of the text portion of the main page, I provide a set of letter-links to move you to thumbnail positions based on the first letter of the names of woods, so as to at least somewhat simplify scrollling through many hundreds of thumbnails and text links on the main page.
bogus color vendor --- a discussion of the absolute master of misrepresentation of wood
botanical names / common names --- a table of common wood names and their botanical equivalents. This list is not definitive, or even necessarily correct in all cases, but it's what I have at the moment, and I share it with you "as is". I am working on improving and will post a more accurate and more extensive version some day.
color correction, digital cameras, eBay pictures, etc. --- a discussion of why I started this site in the first place and why you may not get what you think you are buying if you buy wood on eBay or from Internet vendors.
computer monitors and colors --- a discussion of why you are likely to see pretty much what I see when I post pics to this site (but I could be wrong)
email address: I used to have a clickable email address but 'bots sucked it out and I got too much spam, so I changed the address and now only post it as this image:
fact sheets: On many of the individual wood pages, you will find at the top of the page an image like like the one directly below and if you click on that image, you will be taken to a text page that has information about the wood. I will add more of these as I make the time to do so.
image files, how they are handled on this site --- a detailed description of how I manipulate images for this site and why I do so.
jewelry box veneers --- although nothing on the site you are currently exploring is for sale, I do sell veneer on eBay (user name "HobbitHouse") and I also sell well-described veneer sheets at this link. This is a hobby-level effort, not a business, and any profits there are used to support this site and buy more veneer to take pictures of for this site.
laminated bowls --- my personal hobby, aside from this site. At some point, probably late in the summer of '06, I am going to start offering some of these up for sale, as I have about run out of friends and relatives to give them away to and they are beginning to clutter up my house. JULY '06 --- I have now put up the bowl-sale site, which you can find here: www.phinds.com/bowls/
links to other non-commercial wood sites --- I sometimes get requests from commercial sites to "swap" links, that is "I'll reference yours if you'll reference mine and then we both come out ahead on Google". I don't do that. I DO list a few sites that are not commercial and that are helpful to woodworkers.
mystery woods --- If I get a wood that I can't identify I put it here with pics and a description --- this section is open to anyone who wants to post woods they are trying to identify. Several people have had success here.
personal information: There isn't any. This site is about the wood, not about me, and while I have a dog and cats and kids and wives (oh, wait ... better make that singular in the wife's case), I can't think why that would be of any interest to woodworkers.
prejudices (mine) and how they affect this site A brief discussion of why it is that if you use stain to change the color of wood I will hunt you down and hurt you, and other personal rants.
site navigation: Clicking on any individual wood thumbnail or text link in the main page will open up a new window showing the page for that wood. Originally the individual page opened in the same window but now it opens in a separate window, which allows you to have more than one wood page open at a time. On each of the individual wood pages, I provide a link to return you to the main page (or big page if you prefer) BUT ... the "return" happens in the individual page, so you still have 2 pages open and if you use this "new" main page to link to another individual page, you will open yet another window, and so forth. This is a bit cumbersome but I believe that disadvantage is more than offset by the advantage of being able to easily open more than one individual page at a time so as to compare woods.
site notes: at the bottom of the main page, I keep a brief set of running notes about the creation and expansion of the site.
site statistics: In the upper portion of the main page (about in the middle of the text above the thumbnails) my site generation software places some statistics regarding the number of woods represented on the site and the number of images and enlargements present on the site.
sponsors --- On the main page, and eventually on some of the individual pages, you will see small static-image ads (none of those annoying pop-ups or flashing banners) for a small number of site sponsers. This is a link to a brief discussion of those sponsors.
summaries: On many of the individual wood pages you will find at the top of the page a brief summary discussion of the wood. As I find the interest and make the time, I will expand these into fact sheets.
toxicity of woods --- a table and some links to wood toxicity information, to help you figure out why you have that incredible rash that's making everyone stare at you.
wood terms described with pictures --- several terms having to do with the ways in which woods are categorized by appearance, and some other wood related terms, are explained and illustrated with pictures, cartoons, and my usual uninformed remarks.