red oak grain swirl


ekomeshak

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Had a large oak fall down in our woods, and I've been splitting it for firewood.  The wood is loaded with these wild swirls & spirals - sometimes around a knot, but often just in an otherwise straight section.  I've split my fair share of oak, but I've never seen anything this prevalent.

 

Is anybody familiar with this?  I'm wondering how something like this could be used in a finished project, and if I should have tried to save some for lumber.

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I wish I had the answer for you as to what would cause this. For what my 2 cents is worth - I don't think I'd be burning it. I'm with you. I've never seen anything like it. If you had some way to slice it about 1 1/2 inches thick you could then sticker it and let it dry slowly somewhere inside. Seems a shame to burn such beautiful wood.

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A friend of mine, who also happens to have his own kiln and I buy my wood from him, had a piece of furniture made from a red oak tree that was over run with those sort of twists, turns and curls. When he showed it to me, I couldn't tell that it was red oak, in fact I thought it was an exotic.  The piece was nicely done, but didn't show off the wood as well as it could have been.  I've got first dibs on any that comes into his kiln.

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Looks almost like wound wood. Where in the tree were you seeing this?  It looks like it is more prevalent nearer the heartwood, which would indicate that the problems (blessings?) occurred when the tree was young.  Could be anything from buck-rub to fire damage...

 

Where was this tree growing?

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Thanks FtrPilot - I'm actually in Michigan.

 

RPCV - I'm seeing this mostly closer to the sapwood.  In fact in the 2nd picture above you can see an impression fo the swirls in the bark (in top left).

 

This tree was growing back in the woods - about 75 yards from any clearing.  Pretty big - about 3 feet across at the base.  It had some rot at the base and fell last year in a windstorm.

 

Unfortunately I had most of it cut up before i noticed all those swirls.  Splitting it radially they just appear as bulges about the size of a quarter, but splitting it with the grain (ex. flatsawn) is where they show up.

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