Guides
Short articles that answer common questions about wood hardness, density and shrinkage, each worked out from the 155 woods in the USDA Wood Handbook tables.
By Lucas Anderson · Published
How to read a Janka hardness number
What the test measures, how the numbers are spread across the scale, and why red oak is the reference.
851 words · 4 min readThe hardest and softest woods in the Wood Handbook
The two ends of the Janka scale, group by group, with density alongside.
748 words · 3 min readRadial vs tangential shrinkage, in numbers
Why boards shrink unevenly, what the T/R ratio adds and which woods dry flattest.
804 words · 3 min readHardwood vs softwood: what the numbers show
Group medians side by side, and the softwoods that are harder than some hardwoods.
728 words · 3 min readDensity and hardness: how closely they track
A rule of thumb from the data, and the woods that are harder or softer than their weight suggests.
746 words · 3 min readHow to use the wood comparer and finder
Worked examples for the three-wood comparison and the property finder.
770 words · 3 min read
Every figure in the guides is calculated from the same data as the rest of the site. Open the comparer · How we use the data