Other woodworking instructions and techniques from various texts led Lu Ban to be acknowledged as the master wood craftsman of China.? These works included:

• The Book of Lineages, written in about 3rd century BCE.
• The Tales of the Marvellous, drafted in about 5th century by Ren Fang.
• The Records of Origin on Things and Affairs, written in about 11th century by Gao Cheng.
• The Origin on Things, written in about 15th century by Luo Qi.
• The Treatise of Lu Ban, attributed texts to Lu Ban written between 13th to 15th century.

His specific teachings are supposedly left behind in The Treatise of Lu Ban, although it was written some 1500 years after his death. This book is filled largely with descriptions of dimensions for use in building various items such as decorative ornate wooden flower pots, tables, screens, chairs, altars, and other fine pieces of inlaid and carved furniture.

The treatise also contains extensive instructions concerning Feng Shui, which is an ancient Chinese system of aesthetics believed to use the laws of both Heaven (astronomy) and Earth (geography) to help one improve life by receiving positive qi.? The original designation for the discipline is Kan Yu which literally means Tao of heaven and earth.? The term Feng Shui literally translates as "wind-water" in English. This is a cultural shorthand taken from the following passage of the Zangshu (Book of Burial) by Guo Pu of the Jin Dynasty: Qi rides the wind and scatters, but is retained when encountering water.

Traditional feng shui practice always requires an extremely accurate Chinese compass, or luo pan, in order to determine the directions in finding any auspicious sector in a desired location.
Unfortunately, The Treatise of Lu Ban mentions almost nothing of the intricate glueless and nailless joinery for which Chinese carved and inlaid furniture became so famous during this period and in the years to come.

Native Materials
Historically and even to this day to some degree, woodworkers around the world have and continue to rely upon the woodland areas and trees native to the regions where they live.? This was especially the case until extensive trade routes and more sophisticated modes of transportation made more exotic woods available to craftsman and their apprentices worldwide

Most Common Types of Wood
Wood used for woodworking can be sorted into two basic types:

Hardwoods:
The term 'hardwood' is used to describe wood from angiosperm trees, or more strictly speaking non-monocot angiosperm trees.? The term may also be used for those trees themselves. Hardwoods are usually broad-leaved and in temperate and boreal latitudes they are mostly deciduous. However, hardwoods located in tropical and subtropical areas are mostly evergreen.
The term "hardwood" contrasts with "softwood" which comes from conifer trees, which usually are not broad-leaved. Hardwoods are not necessarily harder than softwoods. In both groups there is an enormous variation in actual wood hardness, with the range in density in hardwoods including that of softwoods.? For example, some so-called hardwoods (e.g. balsa) are softer than most softwoods, while yew is an example of a hard softwood. The hardest hardwoods are much harder than any softwood. There are about a hundred times as many hardwoods as softwoods.
Hardwoods have a more complex structure than softwoods. The dominant feature separating hardwoods from softwoods is the presence of pores, or vessels.? The vessels may show considerable variation in size, shape of perforation plates (simple, scalariform, reticulate, foraminate), and structure of the cell wall (e.g. spiral thickenings).

Common hardwoods Used Throughout History
Common deciduous worldwide hardwoods include the oaks (Quercus spp.), beech (Fagus spp.), ash (Fraxinus spp.), maple (Acer spp.) and cherry (Prunus spp.). Examples of European evergreen trees that yield specialty hardwoods, used in small volumes, include holly (Ilex aquifolium), boxwood (Buxus sempervirens) and holm oak (Quercus ilex). Important tropical hardwoods include teak (Tectona grandis), mahogany (Swietenia spp.), ebony (Diospyros spp.) and lauan (Shorea spp.).

Historical Applications for Hardwoods
Hardwoods have been for thousands of years to present employed in a large range of industrial, commercial and residential applications, including: construction, fine furniture, flooring, cooking, utensils, etc. Solid hardwood joinery tends to be expensive compared to softwood. In the distant past, tropical hardwoods were easily available but the supply of some species such as Burma teak and mahogany is now becoming restricted due to over-exploitation. Different species of hardwood lend themselves to different end uses or construction processes. This is due to the variety of characteristics apparent in different timbers including, density, grain, pore size, growth pattern, wood fibre pattern, flexibility and ability to be steam bent. For example, the interlocked grain of elm wood makes it suitable for the making of chair seats where the driving in of legs and other components can cause splitting in other woods.

Softwoods
Common Softwoods Used Throughout History
The term “softwood” is used to describe wood mainly from conifers. It may also be used to describe these trees, which tend to be evergreens with needles in place of broadleafs, with notable exceptions being the bald cypress and those trees in the larche family. Some specific common examples of softwoods include: pine, spruce, junipers, cedars, firs, and related confier trees.

Sources and Description
Softwood is the source of about 80% of the world's production of timber, with traditional centers of production being the Northern regions of the world.? The term softwood is used as opposed to hardwood, which is the wood from angiosperm trees. Softwoods are not necessarily softer than hardwoods. In both groups there is an enormous variation in actual wood hardness, with the range in density in hardwoods including that of softwoods.? For example, some hardwoods (e.g. balsa) are softer than most softwoods, while the hardest hardwoods are much harder than any softwood. This is not surprising as there are about a hundred times as many hardwoods as there are softwoods. As an example of this, the woods of longleaf pine, douglas fir, and yew are much harder in the mechanical sense than several hardwood species.

Historical Softwood Applications
In general softwood is easy to work: it forms the bulk of wood used by humans throughout history.

• Prime material for structural building components, like house frames and siding.
• Furniture, both rough and fine
• Millwork
• Raw material as pulp in the production of paper products

Printmaking