Red oak or white oak

[Tom M King]

This is good for Oaks of the Eastern U.S.

https://www.fs.fed.us/foresthealth/t...fieldguide.pdf

[Rafael Herrera]

It's good news to me then. I hope to pick the boards this weekend.

Thank all for your help.

[Rafael Herrera]

I understand I'm supposed to seal the end grain. What product should I use for this?

[John K Jordan]

I understand I'm supposed to seal the end grain. What product should I use for this?

I and others use Anchorseal, available from Woodcraft but probably called Green Wood Sealer. It's basically an emulsion of wax and water with surfactant added. It's sold by the gallon and not cheap but goes a long way. It is often sold for cheaper at woodturning clubs which sometimes buy it in volume. (I once bought a 55 gal drum directly from UC Coatings) For application I use a cheap disposable brush in a plastic coffee can. The brush never needs to be cleaned and lasts forever.

I use Anchorseal to seal the end grain of every wet piece of wood, whether the end of a log or a processed blank. I also seal any wild grain, some sides that have sapwood near the heartwood rings, and the side of any blank of some woods such as dogwood and privet if that side has both heartwood and sapwood. (The difference in shrinkage rates and likeliness of cracks in this area is high. When roughing out bowls, I sometimes seal the entire outside.

You can also seal with paint (latex is not recommended), dip in hot paraffin, and use other things that can be messy. The Anchorseal is quick and simple and works well.

JKJ

[Rob Luter]

White oak based on the leaves. The way I learned to tell the difference: Red man use pointed arrows, white man use round bullets = Red oak has pointed leaves and white oak has rounded leaves. I'm sure there are various subspecies that deviate from that, but in my neck of the woods that's the easy way to tell. As others have noted, looking at the pores in cut lumber can tell you too.

Edit - It has come to my attention that the old adage I shared above may be offensive to some. My intent was not to offend, but to share a mnemonic I picked up from a 2007 Chris Schwarz blog post. If any Creekers out there are offended, please advise and I'll remove it with profuse apologies.

[Jay Houghton]

Wow...all this analysis! I've milled a lot of red and white oak and that sure looks like red oak to me. The slight pink tone is a dead giveaway whereas white is always yellow, ash or creamy in color. White is also heavier and denser. They both will have medullary rays but white is more pronounced. I wouldn't trust the leaf structure unless it was living on the tree. The other thing is the smell of white oak which is very distinctive but hard to describe.
The other suggestions about porosity should be accurate since that's a very distinctive difference between the two and why white oak is used for wine and whiskey barrels and not red.
Jay

[Andrew Seemann]

Based on the leaves and the pics, some kind of white oak probably. But at the same time there are lots of oak species and hybrids out there, so hard to say with certainty what it is exactly.

[Tom M King]

Also, one thing that can fool you about leaves is that they are different the higher up in the tree they are, so you can't really tell by picking up dry ones off of the ground. The higher leaves have more space in the openings, to let light get to the lower ones. Often, the shapes of the tips are different as a result.