Wood Terms - A Lumber Glossary from A - Z

A complete "Woodipedia" of lumber terms for experts & amateur woodworkers alike.

Wood Terms that Start with "W"

Lumber Glossary Term	Definition
Wall Decking	Lumber covering the walls; usually 1” tongue-and-groove.
Wane	Bark or lack of wood from any cause on edge or corner of a piece except for eased edges.
Warp	A defect in lumber characterized by bending in one or more directions; any deviation of the face or edge of a board from flatness, or any edge that is not at right angles to the adjacent face or edge; the most common forms of warp are bow, crook, cup, and twist.
Wash Coat	Typically used as the first coat of a finish. The wash coat is used to change the appearance or porosity of a surface.
Water Level	A hose or tube filled with water, used in deck construction to transfer elevations from one post to another. The surface of the water at both ends of the hose must come to rest at the same height, allowing transfer of elevations.
Water Repellent	A liquid that penetrates wood that materially retards changes in moisture content and dimensions of the dried wood without adversely altering its desirable properties.
Water Repellent Preservative	A water repellent that contains a preservative that, after applications to wood and drying, accomplishes the dual purpose of imparting resistance to attack by fungi or insects and also retards changes in moisture content.
Water Table	The upper limit of a saturated zone in the soil.
Wavy	A tooth set that has groups of teeth set of one side then the other.
Weathering	The mechanical or chemical disintegration and discoloration of the surface of wood caused by exposure to light, the action of dust and sand carried by winds, and the alternate shrinking and swelling of the surface fibers with the continual variation in moisture content brought by changes in the weather.
Wenge	Clearly defined heartwood is dark brown with close, fine black streaks Fairly straight grained with a coarse texture Heavy and dense High bending strength High resistance to shock loads Medium crushing strength and low stiffness Works fairly well with machine tools Used for flooring stripes, interior and exterior joinery, and general construction work.
Wet-Bulb Temperature	The temperature indicated by the wet-bulb thermometer of a Psychrometer.
Wetland	The transitional area between dry land and aquatic areas having a high water table of shallow water. Land with one of the following three attributes: (1) periodically supports hydrophytes, (2) substrate is predominately un-drained hydric soil, (3) substrate is non-soil and saturated or covered with water during part of the growing season each year.
Wet Strength	The strength of an adhesive joint determined immediately after removal from water in which it has been immersed under specific conditions of time, temperature, and pressure.
Wettability	A condition of a surface that determines how fast a liquid will wet and spread on the surface or if it will be repelled and not spread on the surface.
White Oak	Varies from pale yellow-brown with a pinkish tint Straight grain Medium to coarse texture Medium bending and crushing strength Low stiffness Used for furniture, cabinet making, heavy construction, pews, boat building, wagon bottoms, and coffins.
White Wood	Wood products intended for treating, but not yet treated; a designation applied to a number of species such as White Fir.
Whole Tree	All components of a tree, except the stump. This is also known as a full tree.
Width	In band sawing, the distance from the top of the tooth to the back of the blade.
Winch	A steel spool connected to a power source. Used for reeling or unreeling cable. This is also known as drum.
Windfall	Tree(s) that have been uprooted or broken off by the wind. This is also known as blow down.
Winding Sticks	Two narrow, thin, pieces of material whose edges are perfectly parallel when placed on each end of a work piece. The worker then sights across the top of them to determine if the piece is flat.
Wind Load	The lateral pressure on a structure in pounds per square foot, due to wind blowing in any direction.
Windrow	A long narrow pile, usually of logging slash removed from a planting site.
Wind Shake	Wood cells in hardwoods of comparatively large diameter that have open ends and are set one above the other to form continuous tubes called vessels.
Witness Tree	A tree used by surveyors to mark the location of a survey corner; the tree is located near the survey corner and is inscribed with survey data. This is also known as a bearing tree.
Witness Marks	These are marks put on boards or pieces to keep them in order during gluing, joining, and assembly.
Wobbly Dado Head	A single blade dado cutter where the blade is adjusted to wobble the width of the cut.
Wolf Tree	A very large forest tree that has a wide-spreading crown and inhibits or prevents the growth of smaller trees around it
Wood-Based Composite Panel	A generic term for a material manufactured from wood veneer, strands, flakes, particles, or fibers or other lignocellulosic material and a synthetic resin or other binder.
Wood Conversion	The transformation of natural timber into any kind of commercial product. This includes all activities from commercial timber (log) delivery to the log yard at the initial commercial processing facility to the final product form offered for commercial sale as a consumer product.
Wood Failure	The rupturing of wood fibers in strength tests of bonded joints usually expressed as the percentage of the total area involved that shows such failure.
Wood Flower	Wood reduced to finely divided particles, approximately the same as those of cereal flours in size, appearance, and texture.
Wood Substance	The solid material of which wood is composed. It usually refers to the extractive-free solid substance of which the cell walls are composed.
Wood-Thermoplastic Composite	Manufactured composite materials consisting primarily of wood elements and thermoplastic. The wood element may either serve as a reinforcement or filler in a continuous thermoplastic matrix, or the thermoplastic may as a binder to the wood element.
Wood Wool	Long, curly, slender strands of wood used as an aggregate component for some particleboards and cement-bonded composites.
Workability	The degree of ease and smoothness of cut obtainable with hand or machine tools.
Working Life	The amount of time after mixing a glue or paint that it remains useable. Often used when referring to two-part epoxy and polyester glues.
Working Properties	The properties of an adhesive that affect or distance the manner of application to the adherents to be bonded and the assembly of the joint before pressure application.
Wormholes	Holes and channels cut in wood by insects.

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Wood Terms - A Lumber Glossary from A - Z

Wood Terms that Start with "W"

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