Before posting googled knowledge, you might want to both learn how to spell what you're talking about, and to recognize the bark of the tree when you see it:
That's the first good reason I've seen for using shellac with wax. I'll make good use of it. Thanks.
Check the leaves. If the lobes have rounded tips it's a white oak. If the lobes have pointy tips, it's red.
On 7/7/2012 9:42 AM, Swingman wrote: ...
No, nothing magic, but "better living through chemistry" .... :)
It's a solution of sodium nitrite--see about halfways down the following page:
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Well I'll be damned ... my maternal grandfather was a hardware store owner, sawmill owner/operator, and a woodworker. He cut and milled the wood, off his land, to both build his house, and to furnish it. I spent many summers on his farm with him as youngster, some of it on one end of a two man crosscut saw. I learned how to use a handsaw to saw straight; recognize different trees; how to fell one where you wanted it to fall; and "helped" him make furniture in his shop.
I also learned where, and in which tree stump in the woods, he hid is bottles of wine. :)
I distinctly remember him using a paint brush to dab something, out of a used cane syrup can, on the butt end of a tree prior to milling it to "tell if it was white oak", which he used for furniture.
Out of that experience, came this story I posted here almost ten years back:
On 7/7/2012 2:33 PM, Swingman wrote: ...
Unfortunately, your link goes to a login page so I'm unaware of the particulars of which you tell...
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Hmmmm ... found it by a google groups search and you have to login??
Since G+, there ain't no telling what Google has up their sleeve these days, except a marked propensity to screw up the Internet at their whim. Here, in toto:
A Gloat of Magical Proportions Written on Mother's Day 2003
I have always known that my grandfather made furniture, one of his hand saws hangs in my shop today, and I remember my times with him well. I distinctly remember him showing me how to guide, with precision, the initial backstroke cut of a hand saw with my six year old thumb some 54 years ago - possibly the same saw that hangs on the wall. I also vividly recall emulating his every move in the shop, including the unconscious, but somehow manly to me in those young years, act of wiping the beads of perspiration off his brow with the blade of a carpenter's folding rule, kept handy in a front top pocket of his overalls.
Considering my enduring passion for making things of wood, those are indeed treasured memories. But, as of this very afternoon, they are much more than just a past .. they have a present meaning, and hopefully a future.
I have always had a decided liking for the Arts and Crafts style of furniture and, here lately, a strong, almost puzzling on retrospect, desire to make as many pieces, with the very species of wood that defined the style, that I can. I currently have an end table, a lamp, a coffee table, and two hall tables in various stages of construction and planning, all in the A & C style, and all with quartersawn white oak as the primary wood, causing my wife to raise her eyebrows in question more than a time or two.
I may now be a bit closer to understanding this strange itch, and the scratching that has resulted in the sudden proliferation of A & C shaped bits and pieces of quarter sawn white oak in the shop.
Today, while visiting one of my sisters in honor of Mother's Day, a sister whom I rarely see, I remarked on a beautiful, Arts & Crafts settee (much like a Morris chair in appearance, but made for seating two) in her bedroom. Our 81 year old mother, the honoree of the occasion, who just happened to be within ear shot, responded with the astounding, to me, remark:
"Your grandfather made that before I was born, and I first learned to stand up holding onto it as a baby."
You could have knocked me over with the proverbial feather. I had not the slightest idea there was any of my grandfather's furniture left on the face of the earth (save one old bookcase I have made of pecan that was not notable for its style) for he died some 43 years ago, and the old farm house, which he built with logs he sawmilled himself off his own land, was long ago moved to the city and remodeled by one of my cousins who was closer to the action when it counted than her globetrotting relative.
Lo and behold, in addition to the settee, my sister also has an end table and a desk chair, all of quarter sawn white oak, and all in the A & C style, made by my grandfather almost 100 years ago.
The gloat? It is impossible to describe the feeling of handling these pieces and inspecting the tool marks, the joinery, the workmanship, and the obvious care that went into each of these pieces made by the hands of a being that was also responsible for mine. The old wood is beautifully quarter sawn and milled by hand, with the medullary flecks as prominent under the finish as the pieces in my shop today. The old man knew his stuff ... some of the joints are a bit loose with age, but all the pieces are serviceable and still hold up to daily use.
Some might see it as more gloatworthy to be in current possession of these items, but, strange as it may seem, I have no desire whatsoever to own these pieces, likely much to my sister's relief. It was a treat beyond understanding to just touch them and to know that they exist. I did tell her that I would be glad to repair any future damage, and maybe re-glue a joint or two ... an honor, and homage of sorts, paid from one woodworker to another.
I left this afternoon with the understanding that I will make no claim on them, but will photograph, measure, make note of the design elements and attempt to reproduce them in faithful detail.
For it seems, and for sometime now, all I've really wanted to do was to make them all again myself, just like my grandfather did.
Live oak is Q. Virginiana, not Q. alba. We had a park full of them in Fallbrook, close to Vista, CA, and they're totally different trees.
Live oaks were considerably smaller and branchy (more shrublike) while white oaks were taller and more treelike, at least in LoCal, where the weather is always nice.
Truth loves to go naked. --Dr. Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia, 1732
When I'm testing stains I like to use tape to divvy up the scrap. That lets me easily apply a varying number of coats. Everything gets one, then one is left alone and the others get two, etc.
I make notes on the back of the scrap for future reference.
VERY long day, so very long story short:
Spoke to the gal in the flooring dept at HD, she assured me they do NOT sell white oak flooring. Sooooooooo, Got the managers name, went up in person with the unused portion (16 out of 27 bundles) and he not only agreed, they should never have had a pallet of white oak in the store, but he gave me credit for all 27 bundles, PLUS a 30% discount on a nice new Bostitch floor stapler. Took a while to jump through all the hoops, as they only had 9 bundles of red in stock as opposed to the 94 they showed on the computer. Had to stop by the other store on the way home for the balance. Good news: No more money spent 'cept the nail gun, and Bad news: I have to rip up a 12x15 room full of 2 1/4" flooring. But it'll be the way we want it in the end. We've only been working on this house 6 years as it is. By the time we got headed for the store, my wife and I had already agreed we'd tear it out even if we had to buy it again. Live and learn. Read labels, double and triple check what they bring to the door.
Thanks for all the input.
True in California maybe, not in the south. The southern live oaks are quite large particularly in spread. I have 30+ on my property...the largest is more than 5' in diameter at 4' from the ground; it is maybe 50' high, more then twice that in spread.
Very messy trees too. If they aren't dropping leaves, blossoms or acorns they are dropping twigs. Thousands and thousands of twigs, all year long. Sometimes a house crusher branch as well.
Those in CA were maybe 30' at the most, and I don't recall one more than that wide.
A huge old black oak fell in a local yard recently. Looking at it from 1/2 a block away, it was probably 6' in diameter. Luckily, it fell onto the pasture fences, not the house. It must have yielded 20 cords of wood from the trunk alone. Another, maybe 3' in diameter, fell in the pasture next to me and looks like about twelve cords of wood as they cut it up and stacked it. Both broke at the ground level, in the trunk near the roots. The odd thing is that both broke within a month of each other less than 2 blocks apart. Each was a different age.
-- Truth loves to go naked. --Dr. Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia, 1732
Every thing is bigger in Texas. ;~) The Big Tree at Goose Island State Park, a Live Oak, is believed to be over 1,000 years old. It has a circumference of 35 feet (11 m), is 44 feet (13 m) in height and has a crown spread of 90 feet (27 m). And that measurement was taken 46 years ago.
Many years ago my old aunt asked me to cut down two giant dead oaks out of her yard. She had 18 giant oak trees, about 4 foot trunks, 60-80' tall. I needed the fire wood so was happy to do it for her. Cut the first one down, chopped it and hauled it away, told her I be back the next weekend for the 2nd tree. Before the weekend, she called to tell me the 2nd tree came down on it's own, all I had to do was cut the sucker up. When I got there, the damned thing was hollow about the first 15 feet with only a bit of sap wood holding up that giant tree. DAMN was I glad I picked the other one to cut first...
Not sure what would have happened if I started cutting that hollow sucker, but I'm pretty sure it would not have been good. To this day I don't understand how that little bit of wood kept that giant tree up for so long. From that day on, I always do a test cut on the big ones to make sure the thing ain't holler!
I'd bet money that was some variety of red oak, probably a "black oak". My father has a bunch of oaks on his property (he lives in central Missouri on about 10 acres) and every year he has at least one black oak tree coming down of its own accord due to rot going up the center of the trunk, and he has preemptively taken down many more to avoid dangerous surprises. Meanwhile, he has nearly as many white oaks and not a single one of those has had the same problem.
racist. :-)
I've always wondered how old ours are. One would guess a couple of hundred years but the growth rate varies very much. We have a new one that was half knee high in the summer of 2000; it is now about a foot in diameter and maybe 20' high. There is another one that was half knee high in 2001; it is only 3-4" in diameter. The two get the same rain, about the same sun and are only 60-70 yards away from each other.
I think they were some sort of red oak, the wood was, as I recall, quite red, redder than any red oak I've seen. It was beautiful wood though. I now have two 70' pin oaks in my front yard, close to the house. I guess they are around 50 years old, and pin oak I believe are one of the zillion (20?) species of red oak, and they grow fast, die fast I guess. I worry occasionally about them falling on my house, but as long as they don't kill anyone, I reckon my insurance company should worry more.:-)
My friend's mom had a pin oak come down on her house. BIG mess, but we got lots of firewood out of the deal.
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