Sawing Red Oak - Recommended Board Widths?

[Renee Brayley]

Hi all,

I have been poking around on the site for about 8 months now - great info but I am having a lot of trouble understanding the lingo! I even loitered at Rockler and browsed around the book section a bit, but I am still very green at all of this.

We had a red oak die last summer, felled it in October, and finally hauled away to a saw mill this past weekend (we coated the ends with paint to preserve it better before it could be hauled away).

Each log is 8 ft long, and the largest piece is about 42" in diameter, the 2nd largest is 36" in diameter. Due to the size restrictions on the Woodmizer, the large piece has to be chainsawed down to 36" before it can be milled.

The sawyer has recommended cutting the largest two pieces quarter-sawn, which is fine with me because I'd like to use the lumber to make some Mission style furniture.

I would like to make a china closet, dining table, bookcase and some nesting tables (actually, *have made*, unless I pick up some new skills in the next 3 months!)

My questions are:
1. What width boards should be cut? Should I go with 2" widths that can be resawed to 1" later? (we are planning to take everything to a kiln to dry).
2. Should the boards on the smaller diameter pieces (24") be cut all the way across, so that we have large boards (i.e. 8' x 23") and how wide should those boards be cut?
3. The sawyer said we may end up with 1000 board feet - that sounds like a lot to me. Can anyone give me some perspective on what it takes to build a piece of furniture, like a dining table 6 ft long? And, do you think I will need to rent a storage locker?
4. Would it make sense to have some of this cut for hard wood flooring? I would need about 24' x 18' of floor.
5. Should I mark the boards that we have sawed so they can be identified at the kiln and how should I mark them? I am going to be at the mill while it is being cut to "catch the boards" and stack them...
6. Are there any recommendations / referrals for furniture / woodworkers in western PA area?

Are there any other questions I should be asking?!

Thanks so much in advance for the advice, it is very nice to have a community like this!

Renee,
totally novice woodworker

[David DeCristoforo]

If the logs are quarter sawn, the widths will be pretty much determined by the logs. If you quarter a 36" log, they widest plank you will net will be a bit under 18" and they will get narrower as you progress toward the outside of the log. I would try to keep the pieces as wide as possible (don't rip the widest ones). If you are kiln drying, you might as well cut everything to 1" at the outset unless you foresee the need for thicker pieces. Resawing later will run the risk of having the planks cup when they are resawn. As to flooring, I personally think it would be a waste of wood to have these logs made into flooring. You can buy red oak flooring for pretty cheap but quarter sawn oak boards up to 18" wide are not so easy to come by.

[Paul Greathouse]

I have had alot of red oak sawed over the years. Quarter sawing is the way to go. Besides the the great look of quarter sawn lumber, it will be much more stable.

As for widths, let the log and sawyer determine that. Considering the diameter of your logs, the majority of your boards will probably be 1X8 & 1x6. There will be some wider and there will also be some 1x4. I do mostly cabinet work so I like the 6's & 8's, I can rip stiles and rails from them or I can glue them up to make panels.

I just built a set of cabinets for my sons house out of quarter sawn red oak that we had sawed and kiln dried. I glued up 1X6's and 1X8's to make the cabinet end panels and raised panel doors. You have to really look hard to tell that it is multiple boards. There are some that prefer the wider boards though.

I've got to tell a funny story that goes along with this. A friend of my son's who is a carpenter/cabinet maker by trade has always been a little smug toward me because I'm not a full timer like him and his family. When he looked at my finished product, he commented to my son, "Yall sure had alot of wide boards. I would have paid money to see the look on his face when my son said, No, thats just my dads glue-ups. Needless to say, I had the last laugh on that one.

I agree with David, don't waste these logs on flooring. To give you an idea of how big of a stack of lumber you will have after kiln drying. The last load we took to the kiln was 1100bdft of mostly 14' boards. We ended up with a stack about 4' wide by 3'-4' high.

If your going to be building mostly furniture, you will need to have two good sides after you do your planing on most projects, so I would have it sawn 1 1/4" (4/4) thick. I like to have my boards sawed to 1 1/8" thick instead of a full 4/4. It yields a few more boards/log and alot of the wood on cabinets only requires one perfect side (stiles, rails, end panels).

Hope this helps.

[Scott Vigder]

Generally speaking, a six foot dining table, depending on how you design your legs and support frame, can run anywhere from 80-110 board feet.

How are you going to joint and plane the boards? If you only have access to a 6" jointer, it would seem 6" widths would suffice.

You will haveto joint and plane the boards to get them to your desired final thickness. Depending on how straight the boards are, you may want them cut a quarter-inch thicker (or possibly more) than the final thickness to allow for warpage, cupping, or other irregularities.

Our Stickley Keyhole Trestle table (see a picture of it here: http://www.stickley.com/OurProducts_Details.cfm?id=1360&Collection=Mission &cat1=90&view=all&view=complextables ) has a massive 1 1/2" thick top of quarter sawn white oak, and it weighs a ton! I believe the boards used were only 4 inches wide.

I recently had two white oaks felled and milled. I elected to have all the board cut to 1" thick. They range from 7 to 13 inches in width, and from 8 to 14 feet in length. The two trees yeilded about 950 board feet, enough to keep me building desks, tables and chairs for the rest of the year.

[Gary Breckenridge]

Try to find an eight foot red oak board that is eighteen inches wide at borg or your local lumber yard.

[Renee Brayley]

Thanks for all the help! I am off to the mill today, taking my nephew with me, to "catch boards" as they come off the mill.

Will let you all know how it all comes out!

Renee

[Frank Drew]

My questions are:
1. What width boards should be cut? Should I go with 2" widths that can be resawed to 1" later? (we are planning to take everything to a kiln to dry).

I think you're actually asking here about thickness rather than width. I'd have the boards sawn to a variety of thicknesses (5/4, 6/4, 8/4, 12/4, 16/4 (the latter two for leg stock).... whatever the logs can yield, but more of the 5 and 6/4 probably). If you think you'll want 1" boards, IMO it's easier to plane down sawn 5/4 ones after they're dry and stabilized than resawing an 8/4 board into two, hopefully flat, 1" ones; plus you'd have a shorter drying time.

As for width, try to get the maximum width with both quartersawn and flatsawn; for any of the lumber that's intentionally flat saws, try to get the sawyer to saw through and through, which will give you boards with the best patterns in the grain.