Tech Tip Tuesday

Well, according to Robert Heinlein, TANSTAAFL.

TAANSTAAFL?

For the rest of us, that means, "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch."

Well almost. There is a wonderful place that is paid for by the US taxpayer. It is a division of the Forestry Service under the auspices of the Department of Agriculture called the Forest Products Laboratory. They say about themselves:

Our mission: To identify and conduct innovative wood and fiber utilization research that contributes to conservation and productivity of the forest resource, thereby sustaining forests, the economy, and quality of life.

Which really doesn't do the variety of research that they do justice - or the services that they provide doing wood identification. One of the marvelous things they publish which almost any woodworker would find useful is their Wood Handbook. This document is available as a free download. However, this isn't to say that the information is limited to the engineering properties of wood - if you can think of anything to do with wood, they've probably done research on the subject. They provide an amazing amount of information and have been doing it now for one hundred years.

Well worth a look!