white Oak?

[redbeard]

Had a customer that hauled some logs up from Oregon. He lives close by me and these were trees his grandfather planted a few decades ago and was pretty sure they were white oak. My phone camera is starting to fail so the purple you see is either a rain drop on lenses or phone wearing out. It was a dark brown heartwood. Bark was off most of the logs and sap wood had some spalt going on. They did produce some nice 1x6"-8" boards. Backwoods you might be able to identifie these because I believe he said Williamite Valley area.

  

  

  there was some barbwire and staples the took some teeth out you can see the marks on the close up.

[WDH]

I would definitely say that it is a white oak. 

[rooster 58]

Yup. White oak ;)

[POSTON WIDEHEAD]

Sure don't look like my White Oak.  :

[Philngruvy]

Sure don't look like my White Oak.  :

My exact thought.  I guess it is a regional thing.  That is why common names versus scientific names can lead to confusion.

[ladylake]

On the end pic of the logs theres way too much sap wood for white or bur oak which has somewhere around 1"  or so, the heartwood does look like bur oak.   Steve

[landscraper]

I will defer to the forester, but I'm in Poston's camp - that doesn't look like the white oak around here, looks more like chestnut oak.  I think it is wet in the picture which might be darkening the grain and giving me a false impression though.  I'm not using to seeing such a color difference between sap and heart either.  Different climates, different soils, different environmental factors I guess can explain it.

[WDH]

Of course it don't look like a white oak around "here" because it ain't from around "here"  :D.  There are several species of white oak on the West Coast. 

[LeeB]

Could it be the 'tan oak' that grows out that way? Don't know, have never seen any. Just wondering.

[barbender]

It looks like an oak from the white oak family is all I can say.

[POSTON WIDEHEAD]

Of course it don't look like a white oak around "here" because it ain't from around "here"  :D.

Don't make me fly off the handle! 

[Lumber Grader]

Hi Red Beard and Merry Christmas to you and your family and all others reading this!!!

I graded millions of board feet of hardwood lumber, when I was a full-time hardwood lumber inspector and I also worked as a National Man for the National Hardwood Lumber Association. (A National Man grades lumber, but more importantly settles grading disputes between buyers and sellers of hardwood lumber.)  If you are grading white oak in the Southern USA, it is easy to spot white oak and it is stark in contrast to Red Oak. Not so in Appalachian Areas, as you have Chestnut  Oak, which is a White Oak, but you have to have many, many years experience to tell some Chestnut Oak from Red Oak and when they are mixed in a pile it takes a lot of experience to tell them apart. It is interesting to look at the oak grains in the Northern Regions also. I have looked very carefully at your close up photos. The Member from SC voted NO, that he did not think, it was white oak and I know why he said that, because it definitely does not look like white oak from his area. I can tell you that I definitely believe it is White Oak, from the photos and my experience. Does that mean that I am definitely right??? The answer is NO.   Merry Christmas Red Beard and I hope this post helped you!

[Dave Shepard]

To me, the heartwood looks like white oak, but the sapwood and bark does not, but as mentioned, it's a regional thing.

I've never see a goat fly off the handle, but I've see them jump off of things from time to time.

[LeeB]

I had a goat try to fly off the top of his fence one time. Fool thing could not fly and broke his neck. And after I had just nursed him back to health for two weeks.  >:(

[POSTON WIDEHEAD]

The Goats Y'all got ain't from around here.  :D

[tule peak timber]

We mill a couple of "white" oaks here . Quercus: Lobata, Engelmannii, and Chrysolepis. Ive read somewhere that Chrysolepis has both the qualities of "red" and "white " oaks. Rob

  

  

 

[POSTON WIDEHEAD]

That is really nice.

[Magicman]

We know for certain dat da Goat flew off of the handle jumped da fence because Redbeard stated that he sawed through barbed wire and staples.   ;D

[landscraper]

WDH so is the tree in his pictures Quercus Alba or something else?  I took "White Oak?" to mean alba since that is the White Oak here, I guess maybe he meant in the white oak family - I'm not familiar with the variants out west, hence the lack of recognition of how different they can look from what I'm used to seeing.

[GeneWengert-WoodDoc]

It does indeed look close to what I would call California Black Oak.  It has the heartwood color I see with that species oftentimes, especially with soil disturbances.  CBO is in the red oak family.

New topic:
Here are some pictures of red and white oak taken with a microscope.


 
Red oak is on the top...the somewhat larger pores in the latewood (the biggest pores are in the earlywood) are not frequent and can easily be counted in red oak; not true in white oak. 

[Do not use the plugged pores as an indicator because the white oaks have both occluded and open pores; red oak is almost always open.]

There is a 100% accurate test.  Put sodium nitrite 5% solution on the wood and then see of the color darkens to almost black or the color stays the same.  In this case, do it on the sapwood.  The dramatic color darkening occurs with white oak only, including chestnut oak, which is a white oak.

Here is a visual comparison - - in the picture which is taken on dry planed lumber, the red oak has the shorter and skinnier rays.  Rays are the lines running horizontally in the picture and are about 1/4" long in red and 1-1/2" long in white, on the average.

 

[tule peak timber]

California Black oak, Quercus Kelloggii 

  

  

  

 [img width=640 height=480]

[Kasba]

What we call Garry oak I heard is another type of white oak? Does anyone know if this true. What we call Arbutus everyone south of me calls Madrona.

[backwoods sawyer]

As a rule of thumb the white oaks looks like the black oak and the black oak looks like the white oak :

I find the white Oak here has a high number of pin knott clusters similor to what the last photo shows along with the rich color shown.

These are our white Oak:


  

 
These are black:


 
Sorry no close up pics.

[Ron Wenrich]

Eastern black oak have a yellow inner bark.  It's a good indicator, as it's the only one with it.  Does the West Coast variety of black oak also have a yellow inner bark?

[Bill Gaiche]

Is Burr Oak nearly the same as White Oak? And is it in the same family? Does it work just as well for you when building furniture? Thanks in advance for your comments. bg