OAK, WHITE

BOTANICAL NAME: Quercus spp. of the family Fagaceae. Quercus alba is the most common designation for white oak found and sold in the United States. It gets pretty silly to list all the subspecies, but here are a few (and I do mean this is just a FEW): COMMON NAMES: names with the word "oak": Arizona oak, Arizona white oak, Austrian oak, blue oak , brown oak, bur oak, California white oak, cherry oak, chestnut oak, chinkapin oak, coast live oak , common English oak, curly swamp oak, durmast oak, eastern white oak, English brown oak, English oak, European oak, European white oak, forked-leaf white oak, French oak, Japanese white oak, Louisiana white oak, Mexican blue oak , mossy overcup oak, mossycup oak, Oregon white oak, overcup oak, pendunculate oak, Polish oak, post oak , ridge white oak, scrub oak, sessile oak, Slavonian oak, stave oak, swamp chestnut oak, swamp oak, swamp white oak, true white oak, valhynian oak, valley oak, valley white oak, volhynian oak, West Virginia soft white oak, Yugoslavian oak

and names without the word "oak": bergek, chene, cucharillo, durmast, eiche, eik, encino, encino negro, mamecillo, mantua oak, penduculate, quercia, roble, roble amarillo, roble colorado, roblecito, rovere, skogsek

TYPE: hardwood

COLOR: tan to nearly white sapwood only moderately well delineated from the heartwood, which is variable in color and ranges from light tan or pale yellow brown to pale or dark brown. The wood may also have a pinkish tinge that can make it look like red oak. White oak, unlike red oak, sometimes has a faint purple cast in the heartwood. Variations in color and grain are considerable, but not as pronounced as in red oak.

GRAIN: straight and open with prominent rays (slightly larger and more consistent rays than are found in red oak) that make quartersawn figure quite striking. Even riftcut white oak generally has noticible ray flakes and flat cut can have quite a nice cathedral grain

TEXTURE: somewhat coarse (most reports say medium to coarse) but without the open pores of red oak

PROPERTIES / WORKABILITY: A hard, tough, wood that is slightly difficult to work with hand tools but easy with machine tools. Takes nails and screws well although preboring is a recommended, glues well, turns well, drills cleanly, planes well, sands well, has moderate blunting effect on cutting tools with cutting resistance generally medium but variable with subspecies and rate of growth. Softer timber from slow-growth trees are reported to be generally easier to work. Has greater tendency to chip and splinter than red oak.

DURABILITY: outstanding wear-resistance (even more than red oak, which is quite good itself) and good resistance to decay (also more than red oak). The heartwood of the white oak group is resistant to impregnation with preservatives. Logs are reported to be susceptible to severe attack by ambrosia beetles, and standing trees and logs are also readily attacked by forest longhorn or Butrespid beetles.

FINISH: Stains and polishes to a good finish, with no need to fill pores (as there is in red oak) for smoothness.

STABILITY: Moderate stability in use (tends to shrink)

BENDING: White oak timbers have exceptionally good steam bending qualities, and defect free material will bend to very small radius of curvature. Proper precautions should be taken to prevent chemical staining of steamed wood in contact with iron or steel as this will result in the wood turning black.

ODOR: no distinctive odor or taste.

SOURCES: Widely distributed throughout the United States. It is usually found in pure stands and prefers moist, well-drained upland and lowland areas. The so-called classic White oak (Q. alba ), grows from Maine to Texas in the United States but other white oak subspecies grow pretty much throughout the US and Canada.

USES: widely used for barrels, kegs and casks because of its impermeability (this is NOT the case for red oak). Also used for agricultural implements, baskets, boats, boxes, building materials, cabinetmaking, caskets, ceiling crossties, coffins, containers, counters, decorative veneer, domestic flooring, doors, exterior trim & siding, exterior uses, factory flooring, figured veneer, flooring, fuel wood, furniture, furniture components, heavy construction, interior construction, interior furniture, Interior trim, ladder rungs, light construction, millwork, mining timbers, moldings, Office furniture, outdoor furniture, pallets, paneling, parquet flooring, pews and pulpits, plywood, railroad crossties, shakes, sheathing, shingles, ships, siding, stair rails, stairworks, sub-flooring, timber bridges, trim, trimming Veneer, truck and trailer beds, turnery, veneer

TREE: The Tree: can reach a height of 125 ft with large diameters. The white oaks vary in size and form according to species and soil conditions. Some are unsuitable for timber production, but others vary in height from 45 ft to 90 ft, well-grown specimens having a clear cylindrical bole of up to 45 ft with a diameter of about 3 ft.

The most famouse white oak in the world was the Wye oak which grew in Maryland and toppled just a few years ago. It was older than the state (about 500 years old when it died) and had a diameter of about 10 feet. There are many internet sites with information on it. I visited this tree when it was alive. I'm an old guy, not given to the modern "valley-girl" dialect of English and thus extremely sparing in my use of the word "awesome". This tree was awesome.

WEIGHT: 50 pounds per cubic foot

DRYING: dries slowly, with a tendency to split, check and honeycomb.

AVAILABILITY: very readily available

COST: moderate (just slightly more than red oak)

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Contact with metal results in dark staining.

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Reaction between tannins and liquid from some products, especially those with high water content such as bleach and water-based finishes, may turn the wood green or brown.

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The Fagaceae family includes some fifty species of the genus Quercus, producing the true oaks of North America, but many of these are so small in size, or are found in such limited quantities that they are of no commercial importance. Some twenty species are important, but since it is difficult to distinguish between the wood of the individual species, it is the practice to group them either as red or white oak.

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White oak group: timbers characterized by the small, late-wood pores fine and numerous, not easily distinguished without a hand lens. Large pores of the early-wood filled with tyloses in heartwood.

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Although generally resembling European oak, American white oak is more variable in colour, ranging from pale yellow-brown to pale reddish-brown, often with a pinkish tint. The multi senate rays are generally higher than those of the red oaks producing a more prominent and attractive silver-grain figure on quarter-sawn surfaces. The grain is generally straight, and the texture varies from coarse to medium coarse. As with the red oaks, the quality depends greatly on the conditions of growth: slowly-grown northern white oak usually being lighter in weight and milder, than that from the southern states. The Appalachian Mountains used to provide beautiful mild white oak greatly esteemed for furniture and cabinet making, but much of this forest area has been destroyed in recent years due to open-cast coal mining activities. Southern white oak is typically fast grown, and with its wide growth-rings is relatively coarse and more suited to constructional use.

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White Oak is considered the King of American Woods, and comprises several sub-species of varying color, texture, and region including bur, Chestnut, swamp, post, and chinquapin. Many grain patterns are obtained from different sawing or slicing angles. Besides good appearance, White Oak has exceptional strength, hardness, waterproof and bending qualities.

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Toxicity: May cause allergic bronchial asthma, rhinitis, and dermatitis

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Unlike red oak, white oak has such a tightly closed (non-porous) grain that it was the first choice of coopers back in the days when sailing ships carried disassembled casks for storing, for example, whale oil or fresh water. White oak is not, in my opinion, nearly as attractive as red oak although when unfinished they are sometimes hard to tell apart, especially to the novice. The key to distinguishing the two is in the butt-end grain pattern. Red oak shows very noticible open pore holes whereas white oak does not. White oak is fairly readily available and only slightly more expensive than red oak but unless you're a modern day cooper, I recommend red oak over white oak for all projects. Of course, that's just my opinion and I could be wrong.

White oak is slightly harder to work with in general than is red oak, and it is more than slightly harder to sand, but on the other hand it is less prone to the density variations which can make red oak such a pain to sand uniformly. Because of its exceptional watertightness and resistance to decay, one might consider white oak a good choice for outdoor vegetable and flower planters. It is, but not as good a choice as cedar, which can frequently be had in "project grade" lots for less than half the price of white oak, and with the same durability plus slightly greater beauty. Cedar is much less wear-resistant than white oak but for planters that's not likely to be a problem.

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Worldwide, the oaks (Quercus spp.) consist of 275 to 500 species that can be separated into three groups based on their microanatomy: the live or evergreen oak group, the red oak group (Erythrobalanus), and the white oak group (Leucobalanus). Species within each group look alike microscopically. The word quercus is the classical Latin name of oaks, said to be derived from Celtic fine and tree.

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Faster growing southern trees are reported to produce harder timber than the slower growing Appalachian trees.