Red Oak

[Ben@FineWoodworking]

I know red oak is loathed by many. It is cheap, filled with pores and hard to work. For some reason I find myself drawn to it. Not in it's raw form. When I am in an antique store I find I am drawn to oak pieces. They age incredibly well. Not in a "look as good as they did back then" kind of a way. But red oak seems to show the miles in a more human way if that makes sense.

I've only used it once before but now I am going to use it for trim on a couple of bookcases. I am hoping to do a lot more hand tool work and I'm thinking this might be a bad choice in wood for a hand tool amateur.

What is the working differences between red oak and white oak?

Sorry for the rant. I have just been thinking about oak a lot.

[Vic]

Red oak is the wood used for every kitchen from about 1970 to 1985. The antiques you've been liking are most likely white oak, if you're talking about Arts and Crafts era/style furniture. I haven't done much research into the properties, cause I'm one of those that just don't care for it. Even if I'm ever to build a Stickley style piece, I would rather do it in another wood. It's not that I don't like white oak, but it's had it's run and red oak has DEFINITELY had its run. I'm almost surprised there is any left. J/K. I would assume it is fairly easy to work with hand tools, simply because it was so often chosen when power tools weren't readily available. But, as my wife likes to point out, all I've said that isn't pure opinion is most likely covered in ass matter. )

[Darnell Hagen]

I like red oak. It's not my favourite by any means, but it's inexpensive, easy to find, and the smell takes me back to high school shop class, every time.

It works fine with handtools. The wood is coarse so it's not as satisfying to plane as finer hardwoods. A see-through shaving in maple is a ragged mess in oak. It's prone to honeycombing and checking, and the ray flake isn't as pronounced as in white oak.

I'm almost surprised there is any left.

[jonny transcend]

I have to say i don't care for the wood either but i have built tons of kitchens out of the stuff. My dad is a oak lover and i grew up working with him so that was always the wood of choice. Now that i run things i stay away from it but still have some pieces that I have made out of it. Its tough on all blades and the sawdust kills my lungs. On a up site it takes stain well. But if you don't like the pits in it use a clear grain filler before clear coating. All in all there are worse woods.

[JohnnyNoName]

Funny you should ask. I think I am prejudiced against red oak, for many of the reasons that Vic stated. It has been overused, and most of the stuff was industrially produced, so there's a black mark. But, after staring at it in the pews at church every most Sundays, there had to be a reason that it has and is used so much.

I bought a bunch of lumber off of a guy on Craigslist, and there was some red oak in it. I was going to make some sawhorses out of them. After looking at the boards (10' long, and between 10" and 7" wide), I liked what I saw. They were clear, straight-grained and a good thickness. I decided to make some shelves for my daughter (my wife's demand request) out of it. I am using the project as an exercise in hand-cutting dovetails. So far, I like working with it.

It does splinter some, and I feel like I'm sharpening my chisels more then usual, but other then that, I have no complaints. It machined predictably. I agree with Darnell that it planes oddly - all of those pores I guess - but it's workable. I have no plans on filling the pores. I prefer to leave open-pored woods as is.

It's not my favorite wood, which right now is walnut, but I won't dislike working with it in the future.

Jonathan

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[Everett]

My first bookcase project was with red oak so it will hold a special place with me. I stained that project, as I don't like the look of red oak with just a poly on it, as it looks like old kitchen cupboards like Vic mentioned above.

[KenBee]

I love working with oak, both red and quarter sawn white oak with the resulting attractiveness when finished. I prefer the natural look in all my woodworking projects so I use clear shellac exclusively as a primary finish for all species of wood.

If you notice Shaker style furniture or projects are almost all constructed from oak, but is usually stained.

As noted above the one problem with oak is the tendency to splinter if not careful. I combat that by swiping the edge corners with an 80 grit sanding block a couple of times, not a cure-all but does help a little.I absolutely will not plane oak so I buy it cut to the thickness I want and use my ROS to finish sand it.

[Dan S]

I have used a lot of red for shop projects, I find it to works really weel if it was dried properly (not case hardened). I also prefer rift sawn over flat & quarter.

[dcustoms]

For me it's all about what is done with the red oak both the style of the piece and the finish. I am really tired of the same designs used with red oak and that "golden oak color"...because it has been done. I have used red oak for more modern projects with dark stains/dyes and it looks great. Also I did a kitchen all out of red oak that we sprayed white, you could still see the grain but it was totally opaque... probably not my first choice but it looked really cool when it was done.

[bois]

In my area, red oak is readily available and is reasonably cheap, so it still gets used quite a bit particularly in interior finish where someone wants "stain grade" finish work. It's also available in the big box stores, so a lot of woodworkers that lack a jointer and planer will gravitate toward red oak. However, to many of the points above it was used (or even abused) a lot over the last 3 years. While is was a preferred furniture material 20-30 years ago, like anything else it has fallen out of favor with many buyers and designers. Don't expect to see much red oak in shows or galleries these days. Tastes have definitely focused more on darker materials more recently (black walnut for example) and show no signs of slowing down. We probably have Pottery Barn to thank for much of this

[Dan S]

These tables appeared in the last issue of FWW.

http://www.custommade.com/side-table/by/kevinrodel

The bases are white oak, and the top is cypress, but since the finish is so extreme, it could probably all be done in red oak.

[Bombarde16]

Nothing wrong with red oak, or most any North American domestics, if you're looking to get into hand tools. Just don't let your first excursion with a hand plane be on ribbon Sapele. DAMHIKT

Rob Bois correctly points out that Red Oak is the lignum of choice whenever trim carpenters or kitchen installers sell someone a "stain grade" finish. Two coats of a coarse, brown Minwax stain, some gloss polyurethane and !PRESTO! You've got a banister fit for a quarter-million dollar townhouse in Chicago's northwest suburbs. Yes, it's sad that home buyers are so shallow and ignorant of our beloved medium that a cheap "fast-growing weed" (as the Schwarz calls it) can be counted on for an instant **insert-impressed-buyer-here** effect. But that's why fine furniture builders don't hang around with carpenters.

As for the differences with White Oak, the two species are very similar but there are some giveaways. (Hat tip: WoodWeb)

• On the face of a flat-sawn board, White Oak has longer medullary rays. This results in broader flecks when the wood is quarter-sawn, whence it's popularity with the Gustav Stickley crowd.
  
• Red Oak has larger pores. As one poster pointed out, when you take a thin cut with a smoothing plane, the shavings barely hold together.
  
• When fumed with ammonia vapors, White Oak takes on a rich brown whereas Red Oak can sometimes turn greenish.
  

That's really it. I use Red Oak all the time as a secondary wood and, if you're going to ebonize things a la Pottery Barn, go ahead and put it on center stage.

[jwatson]

ive used red oak on projects before and i think a BLO and wax finish actually does it well. its not a spectacular wood but if you are on a budget the right finish will set it off just fine. it has been overused in the past 30 years in kitchens all over the US.