Wood can be either SOLID or MAN-MADE. Just because a wood is man-made it does not mean it is not a solid piece of wood, it simply means that the resulting wood has been made up of bits of wood which originally came from a tree. Solid wood however is a piece of wood straight from the tree. It always has end grain at both the ends and side grain on the other four sides.

Solid wood is more beautiful than man-made timber, it is easier to cut joints in and is easier to work with in general. However the disadvantages are that it twists (warps), expands and contracts a lot if it is made damp or if it dries out. When making objects with solid wood it is most important that side grain is never short as short side grain snaps easily.

Man-made boards are boards made up of smaller pieces of wood. Their two main disadvantages are that they often need finishing with veneer or some other coating (such as plastic) and they are not easy to join together using ordinary joints and special knock down (KD) or quick assembly (QA) fittings have to be used. Their main advantages are that they can come in very big sizes since they are built from smaller pieces of wood, (whereas solid wood can only be as big as the tree it comes from) and man-made boards do not tend to warp and twist as easily when they are dried out or when they get damp.

Get the grain running in the right direction
when marking out pieces from solid wood.