Oak is so pretty :)

[Ron Stadler]

My second on my New to me Delta lathe, already started my third. I really like this one, has nice grain and sits really well with the bowl. Thickness is roughly 3/16 to 1/4 toward the base . I believe this may be White Oak, but not for sure, these are all bowls that I roughed out and have a box full of them from my previous Vega lathe years. 344743344745344747344748

Measure are roughly 10 inches across and about half that deep, I'm not at home to measure it at the moment. I used med oak stain on it and 2 coats of polycrylic as my finish.

[Roger Chandler]

Good lookin' bowl, Ron!

[Robert Hayward]

I agree, nice work. Oak is my favorite wood to turn. Live Oak and Laurel oak is cheap to free down here and plentiful.

[daryl moses]

Nicely done!! It looks like White Oak to me. I roughed out four White Oak bowls last week, can't wait to finish them.

[John K Jordan]

Nice job! Some people dislike it, but I love turning oak, red and white. Ignoring the color, yours looks more like red than white to me, but photos can be tricky.

BTW, you can easily tell the difference between them if you have magnifying lens with about 10x. power. Use a single edge razor blade to clean up a small section of the endgrain of a scrap of the heart wood. Look at the big pores. If they are empty, it is red oak. If they are full of something that looks like sparkly membranes, it is white oak. The stuff in the pores of white oak (and many other woods) is called tyloses. Tyloses block water from moving freely through the pores. This makes white oak better for things like outdoor furniture and whisky barrels.

Here is a good description of the magnifier and other differentiation methods, including ray length:
http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/distinguishing-red-oak-from-white-oak/
The article on wood ID on the same web site is also good to read as it describes how to prepare a useful cross grain section to examine.

JKJ

[David Delo]

The only thing to make this bowl look better would be to have 3 or 4 scoops of ice cream in it!! Nice job on the form Ron.

[Frederick Skelly]

Beautiful. The shape is pleasant, the grain is gorgeous and the finish just "pops"!

[Steve Peterson]

I agree. Oak, especially white oak is a very pretty wood for turning. Those are some nice looking bowls.

Are your fingers still black?

Steve

[Ron Stadler]

:)thanks guys, really did enjoy turning this one. everything went pretty well for me.
John K Jordan
"Nice job! Some people dislike it, but I love turning oak, red and white. Ignoring the color, yours looks more like red than white to me, but photos can be tricky.

BTW, you can easily tell the difference between them if you have magnifying lens with about 10x. power. Use a single edge razor blade to clean up a small section of the endgrain of a scrap of the heart wood. Look at the big pores. If they are empty, it is red oak. If they are full of something that looks like sparkly membranes, it is white oak. The stuff in the pores of white oak (and many other woods) is called tyloses. Tyloses block water from moving freely through the pores. This makes white oak better for things like outdoor furniture and whisky barrels."

Your probably right John, I thought it was pin oak or burr oak at first but someone posted an oak bowl the other day and someone, maybe you posted that the grain going in both directions made it white oak. I know it really isn't grain , but mine has that also so I thought it must be white oak, unless all oak has that.
I will have to try the magnifying lens things you talked about, got me interested now.


"Are your fingers still black?"
No, so again maybe this wasn't white oak after all, I did have white oak once and laid a pied on my bandsaw, bad idea, which left the black you are talking about.

d

[Prashun Patel]

Very pretty. Sure it's oak?

[Steve Peterson]

Very pretty. Sure it's oak?

It looks exactly like the white oaks and live oaks that grow in the foothills around Sacramento Calif. The best markers are the small horizontal flecks near the top of the third picture.

Steve

[John K Jordan]

It looks exactly like the white oaks and live oaks that grow in the foothills around Sacramento Calif. The best markers are the small horizontal flecks near the top of the third picture. Steve

Hm... This may be another case of common name confusion where people in different regions refer to different species by the same name. I understand that the name "Live" oak for trees in California is a generic name often used for a number of Quercus species otherwise known as Evergreen Oaks, none of them apparently exactly red or white oaks. The "true" Live Oak (Quercus Virginiana, Southern Live Oak) is evidently has some of the characteristics of white oak (Quercus alba) so it is often classified as a white oak. The pores are said to have abundant tyloses just like white oak which makes it good for shipbuilding and wet applications, but the wood is diffuse porous instead of ring porous so it would not have the strong ring features show in the bowl.

I have no experience with specific Evergreen Oak species in California but even if the wood is indeed ring porous I wonder if the rays can look different from the true white oaks. The table in this article indicates some of the evergreen oaks that grow in California are loosely classified as white and some red: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_oak

As for "true" Red vs White, from the wood database,

"Red oak will almost always have very short rays, usually between 1/8″ to 1/2″ long, rarely ever more than 3/4″ to 1″ in length. White oak, on the other hand, will have much longer rays, frequently exceeding 3/4″ on most boards. This method is probably the most reliable under normal circumstances, and is useful in situations where the wood is in a finished product where the endgrain is not exposed."

The picture from the article on how to distinguish Red from White Oak shows the short rays typical of the red oaks on the right:

344796

To me, the rays in the bowl look more like those in the right side of the picture. Of course, if the wood is actually one of the evergreen oaks all this is up in the air.

However, the bowl is nice. Does it matter if it's Red or White oak? :)

JKJ

[Dave Fritz]

I'm told oaks cross frequently, thus making it hard sometimes to exactly ID them.
Oak Promiscuity — the Dark Side of Oaks (https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiBpKuCnK3PAhUCD5oKHeEmBbwQFggcMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww2.ca.uky.edu%2Fkywoodlandsmaga zine%2FVol5_No_1%2Fpdf%2Foakpg12-13.pdf&usg=AFQjCNGJO-CWGx8jqXdiuNS6FFlVhLtiog&sig2=YhGiOQ0Pdf21qOAtRDOzoQ&bvm=bv.133700528,d.bGs)

It's a PDF from the University of Kentucky that goes into detail.

[Ron Stadler]

Hm... This may be another case of common name confusion where people in different regions refer to different species by the same name. I understand that the name "Live" oak for trees in California is a generic name often used for a number of Quercus species otherwise known as Evergreen Oaks, none of them apparently exactly red or white oaks. The "true" Live Oak (Quercus Virginiana, Southern Live Oak) is evidently has some of the characteristics of white oak (Quercus alba) so it is often classified as a white oak. The pores are said to have abundant tyloses just like white oak which makes it good for shipbuilding and wet applications, but the wood is diffuse porous instead of ring porous so it would not have the strong ring features show in the bowl.

I have no experience with specific Evergreen Oak species in California but even if the wood is indeed ring porous I wonder if the rays can look different from the true white oaks. The table in this article indicates some of the evergreen oaks that grow in California are loosely classified as white and some red: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_oak

As for "true" Red vs White, from the wood database,

"Red oak will almost always have very short rays, usually between 1/8″ to 1/2″ long, rarely ever more than 3/4″ to 1″ in length. White oak, on the other hand, will have much longer rays, frequently exceeding 3/4″ on most boards. This method is probably the most reliable under normal circumstances, and is useful in situations where the wood is in a finished product where the endgrain is not exposed."

The picture from the article on how to distinguish Red from White Oak shows the short rays typical of the red oaks on the right:

344796

To me, the rays in the bowl look more like those in the right side of the picture. Of course, if the wood is actually one of the evergreen oaks all this is up in the air.

However, the bowl is nice. Does it matter if it's Red or White oak? :)

JKJ

Not really sure one way or the other, I do remember getting some burr oak from one of my woodturning club members and also picking up some white oak from a neighbors house, I do know trees identification pretty good when they have leaves with most white oaks having the rounded lobes and red oaks being pointy. But I cannot remember which batch of wood this came from but I can tell you it all came from Missouri if that helps. :)

[Ron Stadler]

Ok, just looked up bur oak and found it to be another species of white oak, but the bowl could still well be red oak since I had that laying around the shop as well.

[Robert Henrickson]

I'm told oaks cross frequently, thus making it hard sometimes to exactly ID them.
Oak Promiscuity — the Dark Side of Oaks (https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiBpKuCnK3PAhUCD5oKHeEmBbwQFggcMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww2.ca.uky.edu%2Fkywoodlandsmaga zine%2FVol5_No_1%2Fpdf%2Foakpg12-13.pdf&usg=AFQjCNGJO-CWGx8jqXdiuNS6FFlVhLtiog&sig2=YhGiOQ0Pdf21qOAtRDOzoQ&bvm=bv.133700528,d.bGs)
It's a PDF from the University of Kentucky that goes into detail.

Years ago my mother did the grading for the Univ of KY correspondence class on tree identification -- she never liked the oaks in student collections. The horticulture people at UK also apparently were interested in the oak in my parents' front yard -- apparently an odd oak hybrid.

[John K Jordan]

... But I cannot remember which batch of wood this came from but I can tell you it all came from Missouri if that helps. :)

One thing I learned to do long ago, from necessity as I seem to become more elderly and feeble minded every year, is write the species on each piece of wood as I put it in my storage, even if I'm pretty sure I'll recognize it later. If I'm not sure, I'll make my best guess accompanied and add some question marks, or just question marks if completely clueless. This takes a while if I've got 50 spindle blanks at once to dry but it sure has saved me problems. I relabel if I use part of the wood and cut the name off.

Of course, this may be easier for me than some since I process almost every thing from log into turning blanks using the bandsaw so I have nice surfaces to write on. If the wood is dark I write the name on a piece of white gaffers tape which sticks to almost anything. For log sections a label and a staple gun works.

JKJ

[Ron Stadler]

I agree, I need to do that. I usually just put dates on the wood and leave it at that but the more information the better.
One thing I learned to do long ago, from necessity as I seem to become more elderly and feeble minded every year, is write the species on each piece of wood as I put it in my storage, even if I'm pretty sure I'll recognize it later. If I'm not sure, I'll make my best guess accompanied and add some question marks, or just question marks if completely clueless. This takes a while if I've got 50 spindle blanks at once to dry but it sure has saved me problems. I relabel if I use part of the wood and cut the name off.

Of course, this may be easier for me than some since I process almost every thing from log into turning blanks using the bandsaw so I have nice surfaces to write on. If the wood is dark I write the name on a piece of white gaffers tape which sticks to almost anything. For log sections a label and a staple gun works.

JKJ

[John K Jordan]

I agree, I need to do that. I usually just put dates on the wood and leave it at that but the more information the better.

Yes, I forgot to mention the dates, I do that too. It's nice to pull out a blank to make a box or something and see it has been drying since 2002. I started air drying boards in 1976. You think those are dry enough to use yet? :)

For anyone like me who stores spindle blanks on shelves, something else that helps me is to write the length on the end of the blank. When looking through my stash to find a piece for a project it's nice to see if the piece is long enough without pulling it out.

JKJ

[Robert Willing]

Nice looking bowls, your stain makes them look like some Russian Olive that I turned awhile back.

[Ron Stadler]

Yes, I forgot to mention the dates, I do that too. It's nice to pull out a blank to make a box or something and see it has been drying since 2002. I started air drying boards in 1976. You think those are dry enough to use yet? :)

For anyone like me who stores spindle blanks on shelves, something else that helps me is to write the length on the end of the blank. When looking through my stash to find a piece for a project it's nice to see if the piece is long enough without pulling it out.

JKJ
All great information, really like your idea about the spindle material as well :)

[Ron Stadler]

Nice looking bowls, your stain makes them look like some Russian Olive that I turned awhile back.

Thanks, haven't really had the pleasure to work with olive yet besides some small pen blanks.