Woodworker's Journal 2009-33-4, страница 24

Although he lives in Spain, author Don Phillips used American red oak for the corner cabinet he built for us on page 30. Red oak is beautiful, durable and popular.

Those of you who have read my woodworking articles for any length of time will know that I prefer to finish most of my projects with a natural or clear finish — and red oak is the wood that helped form my personal prejudice in that regard. Red oak that is sanded to 220-grit and finished with a good sealer and an ambering top coat, like oil-based polyurethane, is simply beautiful to look at. I do prefer to use a quartersawn or riftsawn selection of the lumber, but even run-of-the-mill (literally in this case) plainsawn red oak is widely admired by myriad woodworkers. Unlike some light-grained species of wood that I have talked about in these pages, I do not advise that you apply a coat of linseed oil (or similar product) to red oak, to pop the grain, before you seal and top-coat. Its porous nature soaks up the oil, which will then weep for days — or even weeks after an enthusiastic application. (I tend to avoid oil-based stain with oak for that same reason.) With red oak — or any other species of oak, for that matter — I follow Michael Dresdner's advice and seal it with a good coat of de-waxed shellac or a lacquer-based sanding sealer before I start my final finish coats. This is true regardless of whether it is raw wood or has been stained.

In my experience, there are few species of lumber that are more well-liked or more versatile than red oak. While its popularity may cause some folks to disparage it as common, that does the lumber a disservice. Beautiful, affordable, easy to work, stain and finish — red oak is a true "superstar." So, for those reasons and others: it remains way better to me than ironwood.

Woodworker's Journal August 2009 24

Quercus rubra

Red oak is a group of several species belonging to the genus Quercus (Latin for "fine tree"). This genus includes all of the white and red oaks of North America. Red oaks generally have leaves whose apices and lobes are bristly tipped as opposed to smooth tips on the apices and lobes of the white oak group.

The fruit of all oaks is an acorn. Although red oak acorns are an important part of the diet of many birds and animals, high tannic acid content makes them unpalatable to humans. Red oak acorns have been known to cause health problems in cattle if they become a substantial part of their diet.

The red oak group consists of many different species.The most important commercial upland species are Northern red oak (Quercus rubra), after which the group is named; Southern red oak (Q. falcata) and Shumard oak (Q. shumardii).The most important lowland species are the willow oak (Q. phetfos) and water oak (Q. nigra). Of these species, the most common red oak lumber consists mainly of Northern and Southern red oak. Wood of the highest quality is sawn from Shumard oak; unfortunately, it is usually mixed rather indiscriminately with the other red oaks. The lowest quality red oak lumber sawn from these five species is from water oak.

Red oak wood is manufactured for many varieties of uses. Its highest historical use was in flooring; however, it is also widely used in cabinetry either as solid wood or veneer, paneling and furniture. Red oak is also widely used for pallets. With the recent downturn in the economy, cheap imported materials and a move from solid wood to composite materials for flooring, much of America's red oak is now being sawn into railroad crossties, posts, beams and other construction materials.

Red oaks generally grow up to 80 to 100 feet tall with diameters that can exceed three feet. A couple of specimens of Northern red oak, however, have been recorded exceeding 20' in diameter with heights exceeding 130 feet. Most of the important red oak species are rather fast growing compared to the white oaks, maple, walnut and black cherry.The fastest growing red oaks seem to be along the Mississippi River drainage, where 120-year-old Nuttall oaks (Q. nutalli) in the Deep South have grown to as much as 48" in diameter.

— T. C. Knight, Silviculturist Oden, Arkansas