Just curious if anyone knows why oak has these horizontal shiny spots in the grain. They're usually pretty random. This is white oak, but I've noticed it in red oak also.
Thanks Warner! I honestly have to say I didn't expect much when I posted that, but you never know where learning opportunities are. Most of that article flew right over my head... but all I needed was this to understand. "These medullary or pith rays are essential for the radial conduction of the water, minerals and other organic substances. They transport the substances from center to periphery." I'm glad they put a couple layman's term sentences in there. I never thought that trees need to move water from the center to the outside, I always thought it just went up and down.
Another interesting tidbit of info. That's some beautiful wood. I have a neighbor with a planer, makes me want to quarter sawn some white oak, plane if off and put some oil on it. Just to see what happens, come to think of it my neighbor might know all this already and can help.
You will get some quarter sawn out of every log when flatsawing. If you’re looking for just quarter sawn it gets more technical. Good vid to understand the work it takes.
Those are called rays. That's how you can tell oak in Wood ID. Don't remember much more from my college days. That's one of a few things I remember from my Wood ID class. Yes I'm a Forester , not just some random class you hear them make fun of people in college taking that bears no importance to life. That said I could never get into the fly fishing class, it was always full.
Wood ID was actually a good class, and looking back I enjoyed it. Being able to identify species from just a little cube of wood is pretty cool.
I was thinking of just running my saw length wise for about 5 feet or so, just to cut off a slab. That's a good video, but yeah I'm not going to get that technical. If I had the equipment though, that would be different. I would love wood working on that level.
