Exotic Wood oak, white

open main page here with limited thumbnails open main page here with ALL thumbnails

OAK, WHITE

a note about oaks
There is universal agreement that all oaks belong to the genus Quercus of the family Fagaceae but beyond that there are differing reports on the breakdown. The most common seems to be this:

Leucobalanus, the white oaks, are further subdivided into the chestnut oaks and the rest of the white oaks.

Erythrobalanus, the red oaks, are further subdivided into the live oaks and the rest of the red oaks.

(some reports consider the live oaks to be a third category, with red and white)

Depending on the authority, there are somewhere between 250 and 900 different subdivisions in the oak family.

For woodworkers, what matters is this: the oaks that grow in America are sold only as red or white, not live or chestnut, so I have made no other distinction. Botanists care about the distinction but woodworkers apparently have no reason to.

Another oak commonly sold in America is English brown oak; this is a form of European oak (Quercus petrae) and I have broken it out separately. There are some other woods that use the name oak (some of which I have also broken out separately), but which are not actually oaks. None of these are of the genus Quercus. These include sheoak, fishtail oak, Australian oak, Tasmanian oak, New Guinea oak and various varieties of "silky oak".

The thing I've always found the most striking about white oak is the contrast in porosity with red oak. Although it seems odd (well, it does to me, anyway) red oak is one of the most porous woods in the world (the most porous in my experience) and white oak is one of the least porous woods in the world. In fact, white oak is so impermeable to moisture that it was the wood of choice for coopers (barrel makers) in the days of wooden ships. Now that might have been because white oak was readily available whereas many exotic woods that are a low in porosity were not readily available. Anyway, I found all that very interesting, which will give you some idea how easily entertained I am. :-)

my samples --- colors are accurate throughout

Three nicely quartersawn, and VERY flaky, planks and a closeup of one of them.

some very flaky planks. I was disappointed at how this pic turned out since the ray flakes don't show up well at all, so I took a pic at an angle and you can see the difference directly below

angled pic of the upper right plank in the set directly above. Note how the rays are MUCH more visible when viewed at just a slight angle

rift cut plank and end grain

end grain closeup of the piece directly above

sample plank and end grain

end grain closeup of the piece directly above

flat cut plank

flat cut plank and closeup. I ran across this in an office building somewhere --- it had a strong florescent light directly behind it, so I had to diddle the colors quite a bit to make it come out more or less correct, as it is (the closeup is a good representation of the true color).

rift cut plank and end grain

end grain closeup of the piece directly above --- this shot makes the color look more like English brown oak that white oak --- the color of the pics directly above this is correct.

plank and end grain --- this piece was contributed by Rex Scate, whom I thank. It was taken from the demolition of an old courthouse that was built in the 1860's or so. I cannot absolutely ID it as white oak but I'm just about positive that's what it is. The color in the pics has an orange tint that is not in the wood itself.

end grain closeup of the piece directly above

Oregon white oak sample plank and end grain

end grain closeup of the piece directly above

both sides of a sample plank

end grain and end grain closeup of the piece directly above

rift cut planks

quartersawn planks --- the orangish one in the last pic has been long exposed to light and air and has acquired a slight patina, thus the color

quartersawn plank shot at a lumber yard

NOT a raw wood color
flooring sample of quartersawn white oak that has been finished with a hard, shiny finishing agent that clearly has deepened and enriched the color. The ray flakes are large and are more pronounced on the wood than what shows up in this pic; they are somewhat more clear in the pic directly below.

the piece directly above, after I sanded off the finish

spalted plank and closeup

spalted planks and a closeup of the upper one

small plank and end grain --- fantastic spalting combined with an unusual wavy grain; wish I had more of this but this little piece is was an orphan in a mixed lot

end grain closeup of the piece directly above

long veneer sheet and closeup

flat cut veneer and closeup --- the faint purplish tint is a characteristic of white oak that you don't find in red oak. White oak can be more red than some red oak, but I've never seen red oak get purple like this.

flat cut veneer

white oak that is red enough to look more like red oak than some red oak does --- the rays are the give-away. Once you get used to it, you can usually distinguish between white and red oak based on the rays. The color does NOT tell you what kind of oak it is.

matched veneer set from high-grain white oak veneer sheets

flat cut veneer sheet and closeup --- the color in these pics is just slightly too yellowish, but not by much; there's not a hint of red or pink in this sheet

flat cut veneer with sapwood

rift cut veneer --- the last piece has a slight curl but was not sold as curly --- also, that piece has too much red in the pic

some rift cut thins, just to show a little variety in figure. These also show how white oak can sometimes have a much smoother surface than red oak.

knotty white oak veneer that was described to me as "rustic", which I do not believe to be a formal designation but more of a marketing description.

flaky veneer --- some rift cut, some quatersawn and on a couple of them the ray flakes are not nearly as obvious in these pics as they are in the enlargements

curly veneer

web pics --- the colors are suspect on most of these

web pic of the lot that some of my own samples came from --- color is a little too gray; actual wood was more brown

two planks with a little curl in them

quartersawn curly planks

flat cut planks --- the color on the last one in particular seems unlikely

quartersawn planks

quartersawn flaky planks

quartersawn planks from a set that I bought on eBay that some of my own samples above are taken from

planks

plank and closeup --- this was listed as quilted but while it does have a nice light curly, it seems to me that "quilted" is a bit much as an accurate designation unless the wood in reality looks a lot more figured than the pics

spalted planks

planks that are stained due to haveing been wet and next to steel --- this was incorrectly listed by the selling vendor as "blue stain" when in fact it has nothing to do with blue stain, which is caused by a fungus, not proximity to metal. Many woods will take on a black or bluish-black stain when sitting wet next to steel.

flat cut veneer

a burl

flat cut curly plank, quartersawn curly plank (which appears to have been moistened), and another quartersawn curly plank

"European" white oak flat cut and quartersawn

quartersawn planks --- the color on the last one seems particularly unlikely, and note that the first one has no ray pattern even though it's quartersawn.