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when can we use white oak?

12/14/14       
kp2566

Just purchased 4 slabs of quarter-sawn white oak, 1.5" thick approx 20" wide, 10' long. Bought from a sawmill, it was cut days ago. We would like use it to make a top for our kitchen island. A local furniture maker that makes a ton of farm tables, mostly from pine, told me it needed to dry ( inside a building away from moisture) for 30 days. Does this sound right? I know nothing about this and am learning the hard way that i may have made a mistake in this purchase...that i can't return. Thank you in advance for any help.

12/15/14       #2: when can we use white oak? ...
rich c.

30 days? More like a couple of years. No species of wood will be ready to be used by air drying for 30 days. 6/4 white oak could hardly be ready in 30 days in a kiln.

12/15/14       #3: when can we use white oak? ...
Rod Hays

You could use the oak but you would have to allow for the wood shrinking in mostly width. They build cabins out of green logs. They do this by building in ajustment. Your counter top would have to be free floating.

12/15/14       #4: when can we use white oak? ...
del schisler Member

read this and than you will know, that it will be a while before you can use inside , go to this link

Link

12/15/14       #5: when can we use white oak? ...
kp2566

Thank you all for responding but I guess i'm just as confused as i was before. Can use it...can't use it....
Rod, you indicated it would shrink mostly in width, but everything I've read about quartersawn is that it will shrink mostly in thickness, not width.
Again, I have no experience and am way out of my realm of knowledge, but from what I'm reading online is there may be problems with cracking as it dries but with quartersawn it should have minimal cupping and minimal shrinkage in width. This is quartersawn white oak.
Any more thoughts? Anyone?

12/15/14       #6: when can we use white oak? ...
Bill

I made a bar top made out of 7 different types of wood. They were all 4/4 air dried for 2 years and planed down to 7/8". Moisture was 7 to15% depending on the type of wood. They were glued to a 3/4" piece of plywood and sealed on all surfaces. After that I put the final 3 coats on the top. So far no cracks or splits.

12/15/14       #8: when can we use white oak? ...
Rod Hays

My mistake, it would shrink the most in thichens

12/15/14       #9: when can we use white oak? ...
Gary

It will shrink proportionally more in thickness but will actually shrink way more in total width because it is way wider to start with. There is a shrinkage calculator here on Woodweb that will tell you how much it will shrink but I didn't look at it.

As stated earlier the wood needs to be dry before using. I personally would never try to build a counter top of all things out of green lumber, quartersawn or not.

12/15/14       #10: when can we use white oak? ...
Tennessee Tim

Website: http://www.tsmfarms.com

KP...This craze of using the beautiful woods for all these fabulous projects has gotten the truths and correctness out of line by all the so called "we know what we're doing" unprofessionals doing shoddy cut throat work. MOST don't even have business liscense much less morals and ethics of being masters ( that is anyone who can do a trade on their own in a professional and ethical manor AND provide leadership in seeing trade is being taught correctly). I'm sorry if this sounds like a rant....IT IS!!! BUT I hope it's an eye opener and gives you good guidance. I'm seeing SO MANY people that are getting bad info and are going to be disappointed when their tops (or whatever) warp and twist and the bugs start coming out.

Let's start with your issue/question. 1) YES it needs to be dry.....the correct MC (this is what the interior of the wood should be NOT the outside!!!) Interiors of the average "USA" home is 7-10% and most use 9% as the ideal average. AD ,depending on your location, average in USA is 12% and this can be used IF all the stars are lined up and the project is made to "float".

2) AD vs KD...MANY arguments on this but the truth is both have their pros and cons.....I personally do both...long term ADing is good on stress relieving in the wood but once below 25% MC it's not as critical but I dry on down to the 12-14% range, then I KD on down to 7% MC, then sterilize....

3) Sterilizing/debugging.....THERE IS so much wood being reclaimed, regenerated...whatever the name they use this week LOL....that is NOT being sterilized/debugged and being introduced into homes and businesses that could cause future problems when they decide to come out......YES you need to do this step also AFTER drying.

I just talked to a lady this week and she was "doing" her own workmanship. She is planning to build walnut countertops BUT running the grain front to back instead of lengthwise....for 15-18'...I didn't have the walnut to fill the order BUT I thought I misunderstood the direction...after calling her back and inquiring, I asked her IF she knew how much it was possibly going to move that way....her reply if it's KD'd it won't move...WRONG!! I guessed and informed her possibly 2+" from winter to summer on a unregulated humidity home.

KP, you have a great vision and can be very self rewarding if done correctly. Gene the Wood Dr. here can give better specs than I recall from memory. Check out my website to see wood from start to finish.

Have a Blessed day,
Tim

12/15/14       #11: when can we use white oak? ...
kp2566

Thank you everyone for your responses! Shame on me for jumping on what i thought might be a "deal" without doing more research first. Shame on the guy that sold me the slabs, knowing what we were buying them for. Hopefully we can sell them, and move forward with something else.
Thanks again!

12/16/14       #12: when can we use white oak? ...
Mark

I will throw my two cents in on this issue. I am in western Oregon and mill and dry Oregon white oak.
The white oaks as a group are difficult to dry properly. This is because they have a fairly high radial to tangential shrinkage ratio, are very dense and contain plugs in the conductive cells called tyloses which impede the movement of water out of the cells. Because of these considerations, green lumber must be dried very slowly at first to avoid internal checking known as honeycombing and then dried aggressively after the wood is below 20% moisture content to drive the last bit of water out of the wood. So, with 6/4" "slabs", the best strategy would be to air dry for a good 6 months to a year (depending on the local conditions) followed by kiln drying to get down to the desired moisture content for internal usage (usually 6-10%). Then, as previously stated, the wood should be heated to 130 F for at least 4 hours to kill any insects or larvae which might be in the wood. It should be noted that with Oregon white oak, the high tannic acid content of the heart wood confers resistance to insect problems, but the sap wood is susceptible to boring insects.

You can build with much wetter wood than kiln dried, but it should be understood that the wood WILL move and shrink as it drys and you must allow for this movement both in the overall dimensions and in how you attach the wood to the counter.(Trapped wood will split or crack at the points of attachment).

In the final analysis, quartersawn white oak is an excellent choice as a wood for counter tops, but it must be both properly dried and properly installed. The installer should understand that the wood will move AFTER INSTALLATION as the humidity conditions change (both with wet kitchen situations AND seasonal humidity variation). It is true that quartersawn wood changes more proportionately in thickness than in width when compared to flatsawn wood, but it will still move a bit...

Good luck with your project. I hope you will takre the time to locate properly dried QS white oak as it is beautiful material which gives a beautiful style and is very durable.


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12/16/14       #13: when can we use white oak? ...
Mark

I should note that the table in my last post was built by Zach Malcolm from Portland Oregon...

http://www.zachmalcolmfurniture.com

12/17/14       #14: when can we use white oak? ...
Tennessee Tim

Website: http://www.tsmfarms.com

KP If you have a little bit of time,especially if you really like your slabs, a option might be a vacuum kiln. Also yours can be KD'd soon if special care is taken in the drying process. I think there's a link on here to find local kilns in your area.

Have a Blessed evening.

12/18/14       #15: when can we use white oak? ...
Mark

I agree with Tenn. that the QS white oak could be dried from green in the kiln, but you need to be ABSOLUTELY sure that the kiln operator has experience not just with drying hardwoods, but with drying thicker green white oak. If the dry rate is too fast, (even for a few hours) the wood will be destroyed.
I have a dehumidification kiln (Nyle) and 6/4 Oregon white oak takes around 9 to 10 weeks in the kiln to dry.This assumes that you have a full kiln load of material (around 1500 board feet in my case). It is difficult to properly dry just a few pieces, as the relative humidity around the wood of a partial load may not be high enough and the wood will dry too fast and cause honeycomb defect.
I do not have any experience with vacuum kilns, but it is my understanding that there is not much advantage to this method with most white oak species because the tyloses in the cells impede the movement of water, thereby reducing the efficiency... Perhaps someone with experience with these systems can add their comments..


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