So... what's this wood?

[John K Jordan]

I found https://www.wood-database.com/ that has a remarkable amount of info on every species. Live oak is 30% heavier than any other oak and similar to my piece! But the end grain is very different than live oak; it rather looks like white oak.

The Wood Database is one of my go-to sites. BTW, Eric has published a book with much of the material, especially of the species we are more likely to encounter. If you haven't done so, check out the wood ID page: https://www.wood-database.com/wood-a...ication-guide/

Another excellent resource is the book "Identifying Wood" by R. Bruce Hoadley. https://www.amazon.com/Identifying-W.../dp/0942391047 and his companion book, Understanding Wood. Hoadley is both a craftsman and wood expert and I think well worth reading.

Another useful site is Hobbithouseinc: http://hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/
Zillions upon zillions of photos. If nothing else, it will show the tremendous variation even within a species and some of the difficulty in making a positive wood ID from a snapshot of a board!

JKJ

[Prashun Patel]

I also agree about the smell. If it smells like a good scotch, or creamy then it’s white oak. If it is vinegary then it’s red. The vinegar odor will decrease in old red oak, but the whiskey/sweet vanilla smell stays in white oak.

[Wade Lippman]

The rays are clearly evident in the end grain shot. Perhaps you are looking for the ray fleck pattern, which typically is most prominent when the wood is quarter sawn and the cut exposes more of the ray sides.

All trees have rays, including my sample; but oaks often have very conspicuous rays, mine doesn't. However I looked over my white oak flooring and most of them don't show rays either. So obviously that's not diagnostic. (at least the box it came out of said white oak). Maybe I will have to break down and smell it, though I have never had any luck with that.

[John K Jordan]

All trees have rays, including my sample; but oaks often have very conspicuous rays, mine doesn't. However I looked over my white oak flooring and most of them don't show rays either. So obviously that's not diagnostic. (at least the box it came out of said white oak). Maybe I will have to break down and smell it, though I have never had any luck with that.

You may not see the rays easily, depending on the section through the wood and how it is prepared.

The best thing is to look at the end grain on a small sample. As mentioned, the cross section of Oak is very distinctive. It's strongly ring porous so the large pores (earlywood) are clustered near the ring boundry. From there, it looks like a tornado of tiny (latewood) pores extending to the next ring.

If you use a sharp knife, chisel, or better, a single-edged razor blade to shave a small section of the end grain you can easily see the structure. Best to use a small magnifier, 10x is recommended. Scroll down to section 7, "Look at the end grain" on this page for details. https://www.wood-database.com/wood-a...ication-guide/

If the wood is very hard like dry oak, you can first soak a small piece in water before shaving. I generally cut a piece no larger than about 1/2"x1" and maybe 1/2" thick or so, enough to hold onto.

Look in the large pores for tyloses - they are clear, sparkly structures that fill the pores and are what give woods like white oak some protection from water and make them useful for whiskey barrels, etc. If the end grain has the distinctive "tornado" latewood grain pattern but the pores are empty holes, it points to red oak.

I'll post this picture again - look at the large pores and you can see the tyloses in the white oak. (pay no attention to the color - it can vary widely)
Black locust and osage orange are some other species with abundant tyloses.

red_white_oak.jpg

The rays are the vertical stripes.

If not familiar with examining end grain it might be interesting to look at a few other species to see how much different they are from oak. Some species are quite difficult to distinguish from those with similar structures but the Oaks are pretty distinctive!

These are Elm, Hickory, Ash, Cherry, and Sweetgum.
elm.jpg hickory1.jpg whiteash.jpg sweet_cherry.jpg sweetgum.jpg

You can see the rays in some of these too but look how thin they are compared to Oak, some only a few cells across!

JKJ