Feathered oak picture frame

[Scott T Smith]

There are certain advantages to having your own sawmill and kiln; one of which is being able to experiment with different milling techniques in order to produce some unique material.

Feathered oak is one such product. Under NHLA guidelines it's considered to be a "defect" in a board; however sometimes I'll mill a log so as to include it in the board, and then cutoff the feathered portion after the board comes out of the kiln. That way I still end up with a FAS board to sell, and a feathered oak board for me.

Some of you may remember this post from a year ago:

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=103076&highlight=feathered+oak

Alex Lesniak (George's 12 year old son) kindly made four pens for me on a commission basis from feathered white oak that I supplied him with, and he had enough material left over to make one additional pen (the one shown in the photo). Alex's craftsmanship is extraordinary.

This year for Christmas, I made a picture frame for my wife from feathered red oak. It has a much darker character than the white oak (the frame is finished with a clear danish oil). I find it to be an interesting and unusual native wood.

Scott

[Bill Leonard]

Incredible figure!!! How common is "feathered oak" ? I don't believe I have ever seen or heard of it. Do you market this or just hoard it as I would?

[Ken Shoemaker]

How much a board foot???? I'd like to have some of that!!!!

[Neal Clayton]

Incredible figure!!! How common is "feathered oak" ? I don't believe I have ever seen or heard of it. Do you market this or just hoard it as I would?

it was a popular thing to cut red oak logs in odd ways to create such figured oak boards 100-130 years ago, not so much with red oak anymore, for whatever reason. i have a living room floor that has such boards thrown in around the border of a herringbone pattern to create a figured effect on the border and around the marble base of my fireplace. plain and quartersawn boards "build up" to the figured boards to hold them together.

if you look around antique restoration/salvage places in the southern US you'll see quite a few red oak pieces that were done in such a way from that time period, especially on things like pianos, etc.

the problem is they're quite weak in comparison to plain/quarter sawn boards and can cup/twist in odd ways. so not really good for structural properties, but they do look nice ;).

[Scott T Smith]

Neal - great explanation and well written.

Ken, Bill: Thanks for your interest. Typically pieces of feathered oak (also called flamed oak by some) is only an inch or two wide, and 6" - 12" long. As Neal mentioned it is a challenge to work with (lots of funky stresses within), and typically has a lot of voids and cavities that have to be filled.

I've tried to avoid producing a lot of it because it checks, warps and distorts so badly during the drying process. Also, in order to produce 1/12 bd ft of feathered oak I have all of the milling/drying labor and costs associated with 3 - 4 bd ft of regular quartersawn oak. Also, it takes longer to dry.

I honestly don't know if there is much of a market for it, due to what the corresponding price will be. I've been kicking around the idea of milling some up specially though, and setting aside some space in a future kiln run. If I do this, I'll let y'all know. I'll also be joining the ranks of SMC's paid advertisers this upcoming year, with links to the inventory.

[Frank Drew]

Scott,

Can you tell us a bit more about the logs where you find this figure, or your cutting method that produces it? The figure in your very nice picture frames looks like the kind of feathering you get with crotch wood.

[Scott T Smith]

Scott,

Can you tell us a bit more about the logs where you find this figure, or your cutting method that produces it? The figure in your very nice picture frames looks like the kind of feathering you get with crotch wood.


Frank, you are correct in that the figure is similar to crotchwood. Typically I'll mill crotchwood from a forked section where two trunks emerge from a single log (as an example, make a "V" sign with two of your fingers. The point at the base of the V is where the crotchwood comes from). The boards are milled with the pith of the two trunks parallel to one another as well as parallel to the saw blade. I typically mill crotchwood panels with an eye towards using them as a single panel for a raised panel cabinet door.

The feathered oak is milled from the point where a branch protrudes from the log; however I do not usually mill it in the same plane as the crotchwood. Rather, it is milled with the cut diagonal to the pith of the branch, and comes from the interior of the trunk log as opposed to being branch wood external to the trunk. It tends to move and distort much more in the drying process than the crotchwood.

The feathered white oak used in the pen made by Alex Lesniak (linked post at the start of this thread) was closer to a quartersawn cut, as opposed to the diagonal cut used for the red oak in my picture frames. The diagonal cut usually yields a wider feather and a visible "feather or flame" grain patterns, versus the quartersawn cut which yields more of a sworled pattern (but not necessarily a visible feather).

I typically mill extremely large diameter logs (50" range), which provides a longer streak of the feather interior to the main trunk.

[Neal Clayton]

here's some antique upright piano examples from the early 1900s...

http://www.immortalpiano.com/?page=streamlined-pianos

that's where i've seen this stuff more than anywhere else on old pieces. high end custom cabinetry and pianos seemed to be the likely places that such boards would wind up back in those days.

red oak is our most common hardwood here in little rock too so there are lots of older such examples around here.

[Frank Drew]

Thanks for the follow up and very helpful explanation, Scott.