What’s on the Working With Wood poster
A definition and 6 facts worth remembering.
Wood is a bundle of fibres. It is strong along the grain and weak across it, and it changes width with humidity while staying almost constant in length.
- Cut and plane with the grain, not against it.
- Wood moves across the grain, not along it.
- Quarter-sawn boards move less than flat-sawn.
- End grain drinks glue and holds badly.
- Long grain to long grain makes a strong joint.
- Softwood and hardwood are botanical, not hardness.
- Moves — across the grain
- Strong — along the grain
- A wide tabletop screwed rigidly to a frame will split as it shrinks through a dry win…
Seasonal movement across a 500 mm panel can exceed 5 mm. Design a fixing that lets it move, or the wood will win.
Questions about the Working With Wood poster
- What’s on the Working With Wood poster?
- A definition and 6 facts worth remembering. Wood is a bundle of fibres. It is strong along the grain and weak across it, and it changes width with humidity while staying almost constant in length. Cut and plane with the grain, not against it.; Wood moves across the grain, not along it.; Quarter-sawn boards move less than flat-sawn.; End grain drinks glue and holds badly.; Long grain to long grain makes a strong joint.; Softwood and hardwood are botanical, not hardness.; Moves — across the grain; Strong — along the grain; A wide tabletop screwed rigidly to a frame will split as it shrinks through a dry win…. Seasonal movement across a 500 mm panel can exceed 5 mm. Design a fixing that lets it move, or the wood will win.
- Who is the Working With Wood poster for?
- Working With Wood belongs to the Art & Design section rather than to a school year, because design is not something one grade owns. Anyone learning form & 3d can pin it up — a beginner, a student mid-course, or someone revising years later.
- When should you use the Working With Wood poster?
- Use it before cutting timber for any made object. A wall chart earns its place by being glanceable from where the work is happening, so Working With Wood belongs on the wall where that design work actually happens, within glancing distance, rather than filed away.
- What other posters go with Working With Wood?
- Modelling & Carving, Armatures and Clay & Firing sit alongside Working With Wood in the Art & Design section. Printed together they make a wall rather than a single sheet, which is how a reference set actually gets used.Modelling & CarvingArmaturesClay & Firing
- Is the Working With Wood poster free to download and print?
- Yes. Working With Wood downloads as a free PDF with no account, no email and no watermark, like everything else in the Art & Design section. Print as many copies as you like for a home, a classroom, a library or a tutoring group; reselling the file is the only thing the licence rules out.Read the licence
- What size does the Working With Wood poster print at?
- Working With Wood is a vector PDF laid out for US Letter, and prints on A4 with Fit to page — the same file, no separate download. Because every mark on it is drawn rather than photographed, it stays sharp enlarged to A3, A2 or A1 at a copy shop. Colour carries emphasis only, so a greyscale print of Working With Wood loses nothing.Printing guide
Related posters
Charts that sit alongside Working With Wood on the same wall.
Browse every Art & Design poster, or start from the full catalogue.