Sawing ONE white oak log into flooring...

[Piston]

I have a 14' long and about 25" diameter white oak log that I want to mill into flooring.  I plan to use the flooring for a cabin and put some sort of finish on it.  I had to cut down the tree from my front yard after a lightning storm and want to use it for something other than firewood!
So what should I mill the log into?  I was thinking 4/4 or 5/4 so I could have it planed later on.  Is there a standard thickness I should aim for? 
Also, I like wide flooring, but I imagine wide oak flooring wouldn't be a great idea due to the fact that it would split too bad?  Any opinions on how wide I can safely go? 

The log has been sitting now for 2 weeks and I won't be able to get to it for another month, just trying to plan in advance 

[tyb525]

4/4 should be fine (flooring is typically 3/4" finished), as long as you keep the boards under 4 or 5". I personally wouldn't go wider than 4", most oak flooring in older homes is 2 1/2".

You might be able to go wider, but you may get less yield from the log, and you run a higher risk of splits, warping, etc. Another option is using 2 or 3 different widths, I think this helps maximize yield.

[Ron Wenrich]

I put down a cherry floor a number of years ago, and they were 3", 5", & 7".  I did put down some Bruce oak flooring that was 4", 6" & 8".  I think you would end up with problems if you went much wider than that.  Old pine flooring used to be wider, but you're talking about some old growth characteristics that you wouldn't have in a yard grown tree.  4/4 is the normal thickness for flooring.  Make sure its well dried.

[bandmiller2]

Matt,years ago I put an oak floor in our bedroom. I would mill it a full inch,as mentioned better to keep width 8" or under I did 4",6",8" random legnth,cutting out loose notty sections.No matter what you do you will get cracks at the seems,I broke all the top edges of the boards with an electric hand plain 45 degrees that way cracks don't show and a pleasing look.Drilled screwed and glued in plugs  to fasten.Its enough  tedious work so you will only want to do one floor. Frank C.

[sealark37]

You should mill it 4 inches maximum width, with anything less than four is OK.  Be careful to sticker the lumber properly and dry it under cover, protected from weather.  Take the trouble to find a shop that has the capability to tongue & groove, and back relieve the flooring.  They can also make quarter-round and molding from the scrap.  It will look great installed.  Regards, Clark

[metalspinner]

A couple years ago, I laid a quarter sawn red oak floor in our basement.  The boards were roughsawn at 6 and 8 inches in width and left as long as 8'.
The boards were sawn by teenswinger on his Peterson mill, dryed in a solar kiln, then milled into T&G.

A couple of issues that I did not anticipate popped up...

Every step from sawing to installation created a great amount of waste.

The QS material always dries with a crook.  This reduces yeild.
The longer material reduced yeild.
Drying defects reduced yeild.
Moulding defects reduced yeild.
Installing long boards was a real pain, though the results are great.

Unless you want a very specific look with wide, long material, the advice from others will give you the maximum yeild of finished product. Each time I go downstairs, however, I enjoy looking at those special wide and long boards knowing that it was a difficult job that not everyone would be willing to do.

[countryjonez]

to get the most from the board use random width peices. do yourself a favor and dont do any over 5". they are very hard to install. will make some pretty floor.

[Dodgy Loner]

It seems that everyone agrees that 4/4 is the proper thickness to mill lumber for flooring, and I agree. However, start talking about the proper width and....

...keep the boards under 4 or 5". I personally wouldn't go wider than 4"

I did put down some Bruce oak flooring that was 4", 6" & 8".  I think you would end up with problems if you went much wider than that.  

..better to keep width 8"...

You should mill it 4 inches maximum width...

A couple years ago, I laid a quarter sawn red oak floor in our basement.  The boards were roughsawn at 6 and 8 inches

do yourself a favor and dont do any over 5".

Here's my 2 cents: I put a white oak floor in my home a little over a year and a half ago. It was random-width, from 3" to 9" wide. The wide boards were more efficient in every respect. They take less time to plane. They take less time to mill the tongue-and-groove. They lose less surface area due to milling the tongues. They take fewer nails. They cover more area per unit length, so they go down faster. I really don't understand all this nonsense about not milling more than 4 or 5". It is more work, more wasteful, and less attractive. At least, that's my opinion. But you know what they say about opinions...

[carykong]

I am just completing the installation of a white oak floor in my new home under construction. 1500sqft.  The widths vary from 4" to 12".  In that many of these boards are wide,I milled the boards 5/4,air dried for 9 months outside and covered, re-edged them on the mill and then planed them myself on a spiral head 15" to 1 1/8" this winter and stickered them in the house for about 120 days. No tongue and grove,just butted edge to edge and top nailed with old fashion looking cut nail.  Even after edging again on the mill,not all the edges were absolutely true due to some wood movement.  I overcame this challange using pipe clamps where needed to draw the edges together before top nailing. Good results. This floor has a really "country/rustic" look. If you are looking for a more finished contempary appearance with your floor, my story will not help you. Good luck.

[Piston]

Thanks for all the replies.
It seems that 4/4 is generally agreed upon and the width not as set in stone.  I want to lay the floor in random width's so I will try some different widths and see what happens.  I don't like narrow hardwood flooring as that is what we have in our house, works well, stable, but I just don't like the looks.  I will be tougue and grooving it (well not me but...) and it will be planed. 
The log does have some stress in it so the plan may change when I open up a couple faces and start taking boards off. 
As far as flooring goes, would it be better to mill the boards so the crook is up/down, or would it be better so the crook is side to side on the mill? 
I would think up down based on the threads I've read.  It's not a serious crook but the pith is offcenter a bit and there is some sweep to the log. 
I will stack and sticker it in a well ventilated unheated/uninsulated garage (2nd story) to keep it out of the weather. 

I imagine the width is a function of how stable the log is and how stable it stays when drying? 

[scsmith42]

Piston, it is rare that I advise something different than the consensus here on FF, but I have a different perspective than the others.  I would not do anything BUT quartersaw that log, and here is why.

First, you should be able to yield at least 8” wide QS boards with no sapwood and no pithwood from a 25" log.

Second, an 8” wide QS board moves about the same amount across the face as a 4” flatsawn board.  Thus, you can safely use wide QS boards for your flooring w/o worrying about large gaps.

Third, unless the tree had a lot of stress in it, the boards should dry relatively flat and straight (presuming that they are stickered and dried properly).  Occasionally I will experience an oak log that produces a lot of crooked QS boards, but it is not the rule.  I just took a quick glance at a thousand bd ft of QSWO that I have on an inventory cart, and about 20% of it has an obvious crook.  The rest is straight.  I have a lot of respect for Metalspinner, but QSO is my primary business and most of the material that I've milled and dried has come out straight.  On the crooked boards, simply cut them down into shorter lengths before processing them into flooring.

Fourth, a wide plank QSO floor is one of the most spectacular – and rare – floors extant.  

From a milling perspective, because QS shrinks more in thickness than flat sawn, add 1/8” over and above the norm.   Thus, if you want 1” to 1-1/6” rough sawn boards when dried, mill at 1-3/8” green.  Most of these boards will clean up at ¾” final thickness, (but the 8"+ wide boards may not - better to mill them 1/16" - 1/18" thicker).

If you really want to maximize the square footage of quartersawn flooring yield, mill your boards at 6/4 green, dry them (they will shrink down to a little under 5/4), then resaw them into two flooring blanks that are 9/16” thick.  Next, process these 9/16" blanks into 3/8” thick flooring and glue it down.  Use profile cutters similar to the ones that Pergo uses for it’s snap-loc flooring.  You will yield about 50% more square footage this way as opposed to the 3/4" thick floor

Yes, this is extra work but you will have a truly unique and spectacular floor.

Scott

[WDH]

A q-sawn white oak floor would be exceptional!  I like the rift pattern too. 

[metalspinner]

Scott,
No need to worry about disagreeing me.   I'm sure some of the crook in my QS oak boards has to do with my drying situation (Air then Solar Kiln) and the fact that I leave the sapwood on the boards.  My sap boards always dry funny.

I have noticed that perfect QS boards tend to crook and rift sawn dries as a diamond shape.  Is this defect controlable by kiln drying from green?

All of the logs I receive are usually the result of the trees death from disease or growing conditions - typical urban rubbage.  This probably has plenty to do with the stress in my logs and lumber.

[Dan_Shade]

I recently nailed down a floor in my house of red oak 3/4/5/6" wide, a lot of it quarter and rift sawn, many of the boards are over 10' long

I second everything metal spinner said.  i had to make a special tool to press the crook out, and pretty much every board was a headache.

[shelbycharger400]

 
is this log a solid...from a single tree, or is a double grown together?     I havent started millin here, mill is almost done.. but breakin down some big stuff i have picked up, im learnin how to rip them down with the chain saw right.   some might differ.. but if i find a 2 ft dia log thats a Y....    i split it down the Y,  so much dirt/ hollow spots ect,  i will be milling 90 deg to my chainsaw cut line.  but Im also setting these up for a horizontal mill too.    about 90 percent of my material here now... is bark free,   by hand with a 3 in mason chizzel (with the yellow handle) and a 2 lb sledge..  light taps get you started,  seems green/wet log comes off real eazy vrs sittin for over a year.    boxelder... i let it sit for a month..then spalts/ starts to stink... then comes off with little work.   One slab here in the basement ( i paid to have circle sawn over a year ago, ( it was stack of 7, all at 3 in thick, stickered, and banded, 6 ft long slabs, sat on 3 4x4s in the shed tarped, that air exchange is slow. ,  , when it was a Y... deep into the tree from a branch, that grew over, over time,   sawn in respect to the Y , with the Y being north/ south, not east/west,  i think i will take an edge shot so its more for you to see..   basically as it dried, tried to pull itself apart, partially it wasnt dry when i pulled it out of the shed,  cut in june last year,  sawn mid june,  was shed right away,  pulled 2 pcs of these out and brought home in late dec.   I remember hering loud cracks..  not normal house sift nosies  from the basement. 

[Piston]

 Here a couple pics, looking back at my pics I guess I don't have too many good ones of just the log itself.  I'll try to find some more....





 

[Piston]

Found some more, I knew I had others! 

 

[WDH]

Looks like that you have more log than tractor  .  I want to see a pic of a quartersawn white oak floor!

Dan, what would you do different?  Would your change the width and the length, both, or neither?

[Ianab]

I have noticed that perfect QS boards tend to crook and rift sawn dries as a diamond shape.  Is this defect controlable by kiln drying from green?

Not really. The wood is going to shrink at a different rate tangentially compared to radially. With Oak the difference is about 50%, so the rift sawn boards will tend to go diamond shaped. Quarter sawn will tend to crook more than anything else. Flat sawn is most likely to cup. Doesn't matter how you dry them, the same shrinkage will occur.

This is the reason we cut a bit over the finished size, so we can machine out that uneven shrinkage.

Piston - that's a decent looking log there. Not sure how I would cut it, but there should be some decent flooring in there   

In this part of the world solid wood floors would all be cut as 4x1, then machined to exact size. Just makes it easier to lay if all the boards are the same, you can pick the lengths that suit your room, and all the boards are the same. Matching different lengths AND different widths make the job even more complex.

Of course you could rough saw them as multiples of 4", (8", 12") and rip them down once they are dry.

Ian

[Kansas]

One wall in the great room here is quartersawn white oak. I thought that would be the showcase wall. Very few knots, and a lot of flake. In reality, I find it rather bland. Others have thought differently. Think if I were you, I would flat saw it, with maybe part of it quarter and rift sawn for accent. The random width works fine for getting the most out of the log. Just run a strip of one width, then one of another width. It helps break up the floor visually. And if knots are sound, by all means use them. That enhances the look. Being this is a cabin, I wouldn't be afraid to go with wider boards. If they would gap slightly, would that really hurt anything in a cabin? You can also do a cut edge on the table saw and not do the tongue and groove. Kind of like a shiplap. Lot faster. Face nail it with finish nails, or if you want a primitive look, use the old time square nails and sand those right down with the wood.  There will be slight bumps where the nails are, but it gives a very unique look. Guy that used to work for me from the kentucky/tennessee area said they did that a lot at cabins at resort areas. Of course, as pointed out, screws and plugs can be done too.

[Norm]

I have my kitchen and the living room next to it floored with QSWO. I love the stuff, hard as a rock and easy to care for. It's never moved a bit since installed and gets lots of ohhhs and ahhs from company. Mine is all 3 1/2" but I think random width would really add to it.

[ladylake]

Found some more, I knew I had others! 

 

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 A set of forks on the 3 point will lift quite a bit more.     Steve

[scsmith42]

Scott,
No need to worry about disagreeing me.   I'm sure some of the crook in my QS oak boards has to do with my drying situation (Air then Solar Kiln) and the fact that I leave the sapwood on the boards.  My sap boards always dry funny.

I have noticed that perfect QS boards tend to crook and rift sawn dries as a diamond shape.  Is this defect controlable by kiln drying from green?

All of the logs I receive are usually the result of the trees death from disease or growing conditions - typical urban rubbage.  This probably has plenty to do with the stress in my logs and lumber.

Chris, that's an interesting observation regarding the potential impact of sapwood.  I'll check my inventory and see if I can spot a trend, and if there is a difference between QSRO and QSWO. 

It seems as if my widest boards (12"+) dry the straightest, and the narrower ones (<6") are more inclined to crook.  I'm also thinking that stress wood may have a lot to do with it.  Most of my logs have centered piths (when you focus on large logs, they tend to grow straight else they would have fallen down years before).

Dan, do you recall if there was a pattern to your crooked boards? ie - narrower ones were crooked and wider was straight?

[Kansas]

When we true quartersaw white oak, we do logs from 30-36 inches, splitting them in half at the pith, then splitting the two halves. On occasions you see a little movement in one of the quarters, but not a lot. We then true quartersaw those quarters. The narrow boards do indeed have more of a tendency to get crook in them that the wide ones. The wide ones that go all the way from near the pith to the outside rarely move much. But as you get down to where the boards are narrower and off the outside more, the odds are a lot higher they will move. I don't know if its because a wide board will be more inherently stable; if the inner wood holds the outside and whole board straighter. Its not unusual to have some 13-14 inch wide quartersawn. However, that inner 4-6 inches usually have a few knots. Those rarely move at all. We don't trim out those knots because a qs wide board will be the first ones the customers grab, and they will overlook the knots.

[Piston]

Would it be safe to say that if I wanted wider boards, I should quartersaw the log since they may crook less than narrower QS boards?  And for the narrowing stuff, I should flat saw them because they may cup less than wider flat sawn boards? 
Norm, do you (or anyone else) have any pics of your QSWO flooring? 

Also any pics of flat sawn oak flooring (wider the better).  I'd like to see a comparison of the two. 


Also, I currently have all 10 degree blades from WM.  Should I invest in another blade or two for this log, like a 4 degree or something? 

I also have some shagbark hickory that I should be able to get some boards out of.  In your opinions, would a mix of hickory and white oak flooring be a nice mix?  I have read some bad things about hickory drying so are there special considerations to sawing it? 
I think I would like the hickory for the cabinets too, or maybe braces??? I have a couple logs that I can get, but on the better size log there is a large knub from a branch that will be too big of a knot to use in the boards, so I may have to work around that.

[Piston]

Alright, another question before you even answer my last ones 

Should I try and find a kiln around me to dry the lumber? or will air drying it be sufficient?  It will be at least a year and more likely 2 years before it is even used.

Oh and by the way, I just google imaged some pics of oak and hickory flooring.  I am Reeeeaalllyy liking the hickory look when it is flatsawn. 

I still welcome pics though 

[scsmith42]

Piston, regarding drying, because it tends to be cooler where you are you will be ok air drying the oak.  It's always a good idea to run it through a kiln a few weeks before you're ready to machine it, in order to sterilize the lumber as well as bring the MC% down below 10%.

Regarding wide boards, QS is best because it expands/contracts across the width much less than flat sawn.  If you have a 12' long 10" wide QS board that has crooked, simply cut it into two 6' long boards and straight line rip the crook out of it.  You should still be able to net out an 8" wide flooring board that way.

[Dan_Shade]

I think they were pretty much all crooked.  I know it was a major PITA to install

[Norm]

It's hard to get a decent picture of the figure but here's one I just took.



It really doesn't do it justice though.

Get some of the 7° blades for the white oak if you want although the 10's will work.

[red oaks lumber]

norm,
 is that wood you sawed out and had milled?

[Norm]

I wish I could take credit for it but it was purchased from a mill in SW Wisconsin.

Patty, Joel (oldest son) and I installed and finished it. 

[Piston]

Looks nice Norm!  I'm sure it's even better in person.  Thanks for posting the pic.  I'm thinking more and more I want to try QS the oak. 

[scsmith42]

I made an interesting discovery recently, and it relates back to this thread.  In the initial discussion, several FF members that I respect greatly mentioned that their experience with quartersawn oak boards had been that  many of them tended to crook as they dried.  That has not been my experience, and it never made sense to me why my results (even if better) were different than others.

Well, today I found out why, and that is that boards will crook if they have juvenile wood present along one edge, and this explained why my results were different than Metalspinners and others.

Most folks operate bandmills, and the typicaly way that they quartersaw is to literally quarter the log, and then saw each face of the quarter, flipping the cant as they go.  This results in some juvenile pith wood that is typically present along one edge of their boards.

When I quartersaw with my swing blade mill, I ALWAYS box the heart and pull anything between a 4 x 4 to a 6 x 6 out of the log, so there is rarely any juvenile wood present in my boards.  As a result, the boards rarely tend to crook when drying, unless there were internal stresses in the log (and usually these boards start to crook as soon as they are milled).

Glad that I found out the root cause and figured that I'd share it with yall.  This just seemed like some unfinished business to me!

Scott

[pineywoods]

Scott, I do the same thing. After messing with sycamore, I have about concluded that the center 4 to 6 inches of a log is maybe good firewood...

[WDH]

That is exactly right!  The juvenile side shrinks faster and harder than the mature outer edge, voila, crook.  I need to do a better jog of getting rid of the juvenile core, Scott.  I try to maximize every ounce of wood, and that can be very wrong if that last ounce is pith wood.  Old habits die hard.

[Jaybolicious]

I did my bathroom floor two years ago in red oak.  I had 3, 12' logs all around 26- 32" in diameter.  I flat sawed all three logs to exactly 1" and made all the 12" wide boards I could. After letting them air dry for 2 years I installed them in the summer. The boards were slightly bowed length-wise as they dried.  To get them straight I found using a large plane and a chalk line worked the best for me, and a 6' straight edge too.  Amazing how flat you can plane a board and how quickly with a sharp plane. The pine floors I'm doing now are bowed similarly, the pine planes like a dream in comparison.  One thing about the oak is the ray fleck in center cuts, boy are they pretty.   
  The oak did end up with some shrinkage gaps, but nothing that bothers me at all.   

  

  

 

[Piston]

Scott,
Thanks for bringing that up and sharing it with us.  I haven't checked my boards since I stacked and stickered them.  I will check next time I'm there and see if they've crooked at all, if not, it may be worth me trimming off some of that juvenile wood you were speaking of, and re stacking.  I have a table saw sitting right next to my stack so it wouldn't be too difficult. 

Jay,
That floor looks great!