Gag Bowl out of Red Oak?

[Terry Achey]

wow... I would have never guessed that it would transmit air that readily! I have two red oak bowls drying on the rack right now. Yes, the rough cut left them quite "hairy".

[curtis rosche]

i must just have tight grained red oak here, the red oak i have is all cut from our property, all 800 bdft of it. i'll post a picture of the thing my brother turned out of a peice, its end grain and theres no holes in it, i guess we just have some really good red oak.

[Jim Underwood]

It could be that the wood you have is actually a White Oak, since there are so many species of Oak. The lumber industry lumps several species into each category. (The classic example of this is Pecan and Hickory - they are both Hickory in the lumber yard.) The other thing, is that many times it is very difficult to tell white from red just by the color of the wood. Of course in your case, y'all actually cut the trees yourself, and if you identified it by the leaves, then there's no mistake.

One way to tell for sure on a particular piece of oak is to plane a section of it down quite smoothly, and then take it out into the sunlight and sight along the planed edge looking at the pores in the side of the wood. If you see "sparklies" then it's White Oak. The tyloses in the White Oak are what sparkle, and also what closes the cells.

I also wondered if moisture content could close up the pores... I'm working with kiln dried stuff with a moisture content probably around 6-8%. That's very dry. If your stuff is air dried only recently, then the moisture content is quite likely quite a bit higher than that.

[Jim Underwood]

You probably think I'm nuts, but I find the difference between Red and White Oak to be interesting.

I used to run the milling end of a flooring plant, and lots of miles of Red and White Oak passed through my hands while running a moulder. I also spent quite a few hours grading, stacking, sawing, checking moisture content, and speaking to the NOFMA inspector about the differences between Red and White Oak.

So that explains my obsession with the subject. Plus I always wanted to do a wood ID workshop. I should be collecting samples...
Anyway, here's a closeup picture comparing Red Oak and White Oak endgrain. I'll give you two guesses which is which.

Note the closed pores (clogged by tyloses) and the very prominent ray cells on the White Oak. Even on end grain the ray cells are more prominent than the Red.

[Nathan Hawkes]

I'm not as up on oak ID's as some; I can definitely tell you a white oak, southern red oak (I think also called scarlet), black oak, willow, blackjack, & chestnut, but I know there are several varieties of red oak. Are there any other oaks than white that have tyloses between cells?? Just curious. My uncle is a PhD in wood science, but I thought I'd ask here...

[Jim Underwood]

All I can tell you is that there are several species of Oak that are lumped into the red and white categories by the lumber industry. You'd have to speak to someone else to find out which ones.

[curtis rosche]

i knew about the rays, but what we have is all red oak, i tryed to get a picture of the peice i used but i couldnt get teh camera to focus close enough to show any grain detail...... the peice is the red oak that is light pinkish, it has a tight grain, it also has those "black streaks" in it

[Jim Underwood]

Curtis,

In order to get your camera to focus on closeup stuff like I did, you have to set in on "macro" mode denoted by a flower icon (as opposed to a landscape mode denoted by a mountain icon). In my case I have "super-macro" which is a flower icon with an "S" in the middle that allows me to get really close and show the detail.

[curtis rosche]

thank jim. i dont have time to post them tonigh, wrestling ppractice in 10 minutes, but i'll get them tommorow

[Jim Underwood]

Nathan,

I got a response from a friend of mine who was a forester for some big company and this is what he said:

White oaks lumber comes from the White Oak tree (Quercus Alba). Also in the white oak group are Chestnut oak, bur oak, overcup oak, swamp chestnut oak, swamp white oak. Most of these are fairly rare except for the white oak (q. alba). The red oaks are more numerous they include southern red oak, northern red oak, scarlet oak, black oak, cherrybark oak, & water oak. The lumber can come from any of these.

[Scott Lux]

Forget a gag bowl. What we need is a red oak end-grain canoe!!

[Jim Underwood]

That's hilarious!

I can just see it going down, paddlers and all...

blub blub blub....

[Richard Madison]

Great picture Jim! Saved for ref.

If it's red oak (and won't hold water), it must be art.

[Tim Lesak]

Cut a couple of pieces like jim has there about 1/4" thick and hold them up to a light, you will be amazed at how much light you can see through the red oak and none in the white.