How real is magical wood sensing?

[rudy de haas]

Many of the books by L.E. Modesitt (e.g. the 20 or so in the Recluce series) feature woodworkers. The series is actually science fiction (despite swords and magic) because it's about cultures that arose among people crashed on an alien planet that at one time was teraformed using nano critters that remain as a worldwide layer ( Game of thrones uses the same idea) that communicate and do whatever magical seeming things the author requires them to do.

One of the things the author requires them to do is enable some woodworkers to see inside wood and so reliably tell the best (for whatever purpose they're picking it) from second best. I'm am a beginner at woodwork, but starting to think I can tell which of two pieces of wood is likely to crack or twist as I do stuff to it. My question is whether this is delusional.

If you were handed two pieces of similar looking wood, could you reliably tell which one is better for some purpose? (dovetailing? use in a chair leg? crosspiece on a table? part of a cabinet door..)

[Frederick Skelly]

I think that I can sometimes judge whether a typical piece of wood is going to work in a particular application by looking at how it was sawn (flat, quarter, etc) and its grain direction. I'm sure many are more skilled at it than I am though.

[Mike Ontko]

I think the starting point for achieving that merit badge of wizardry is to complete your first 10,000 hours as a woodworker ;)

[lowell holmes]

I bet after you have wood to split a time or two, you will not have a problem.

Grain pattern is what I look at. Is the wood dry?

[Robin Dobbie]

The rational explanation could be that you were subconsciously picking up on cues from the boards you've had success with and you're now intuitively choosing the best boards based on that subconscious experience. Or I could be talking out my ass.

Take a friend or two lumber shopping. Everyone make guesses on which are the best boards. Have a third-party judge, and the winner gets lunch.

[Steve Demuth]

People with lots of experience and who pay attention to detail certainly can tell a great deal. It's not magical though, it's just training the mind to a specific set of signals and results. It's very similar, although probably not as complex, to the experienced doctors with whom I work who can make remarkable diagnoses based on, say, a long look at an ECG that in the hands of a less experienced doctor answers only some standard questions about the patient. Some of the best are astonishing, in both disciplines.

But neither the doctor nor the experienced woodworker will always get it right. The best trained models are still approximations to the relationship between signal and truth.

[Jim Becker]

While Mother Nature will always provide some surprises, with time, many woodworkers gain the knowledge through experience that allows them to be able to generally visualize what's going on with a piece of wood so they can utilize it to its best potential. It's not an "extra sense" as portrayed in the fiction; rather, it's the expression of and use of learned knowledge. But yes, some folks are much better at it than others. :)