White Oak for Seacoast

[thelionspaw]

Tracey,
I checked over umteen places.  All of my local mills have no interest in that size. Higher profit and greater roll-over market for smaller cuts. 12/4 is a problem.  I was steered to advantagelumber.com who have 4'X4' and hearnehardwoods.com in Oxford PA who stock 12/4  I am still waiting for a friend with a mill to get back to me but he is the, "Stone-down-the-well".  I bounced off his mill twice and nada. Vacation?  Look over what I gave you and I'll keep trying my friend but things do NOT look promising beyond this.  I even tried everyone I've bought from since Hector was a pup.

rc

[Frank46]

Mike and Tracey, If we here in louisiana get hit by gustav you can come down here and get all the live oak you can handle. It was so bad after rita that they were using airboats mounted on trailers to blow on the huge piles of burning wood just so it would burn faster. I have an oak tree by the house and would gladly donate it in the interest of furthering your craft. Seriously though, just one limb would probably last you a few years. Frank

[seacoastartillery]

     Richard, the Beneficent,   Thanks again for searching; we have called almost 40 lumber yards and sawmills, most with kiln drying capability.  We will call these two on Thursday.  We will let you know exactly what there capabilities are.  How old is Hector or is he not with us any longer?   We are also calling a few of those on the NYS list, the ones with kiln drying available, almost every day.  A month ago we found a sawmill in MI who says he can cut some in about 6 months, but please allow 3 months for drying!  He is very, very busy, we suppose.

     Frank,   Thank you sir, we certainly appreciate that.  Do you know if this is the same "Live Oak" they have in Savannah, Georgia?  Some of those are really huge.  The kiln drying is the tough acorn to crack, Frank.  You would be absolutely amazed at how universal the cutoff on thickness is;  most yards carry 8/4 white oak and that's it.  Everyone among the sawyers wants to sell you green wood; the vast majority do not want the bother of drying 12/4 thickness white oak.  Perhaps there is a high failure rate?  Internal checks inside the wood are hard to detect and usually do not make for happy customers.  End checking can ruin a substantial % of the wood, if very close and careful drying processes are not employed.

Regards,

Tracy and Mike

[gary michie]

Hi:
IT makes me cry every time I hear that hard wood is being burned. do you know how much good hard wood is here in the north west? 0 and how much you will pay for it if you want some $$$$$$+$
gary

[seacoastartillery]

     Well, I called Richard's most recent leads today and thought I had a "live one" in Hearn, but when I asked more questions, I became certain that there were going to be some knots in the wood even though I specified turning squares.   So, although they have 12/4 oak, they indicate that it would come in random widths and lengths.I'm sure almost everyone here has heard that before and what it means is you are going to have lots of waste unless you are making teeny tiny, itsy, bitsy widgets, which we are not!  Oh well, I guess the search goes on for 12/4, clear, white oak, turning squares.  I found one sawmill in MI with only a 3 month lead time who has some white oak butt logs which are mostly clear wood in their yard right now.  That may turn out to be the best deal.   Wood Quest 2008 continues.

Tracy and Mike

[Frank46]

Gary, yes its a shame. If someone had a flatbed with crane on back and a few chainsaws they'd have enough hardwood to last until the second coming. I had a 150' pecan tree go down when rita came through here. Although the main trunk was rotted, there were two limbs that were over 2' thick and clear wood with no rot. Must have been 30' long. When burned you could smell pecans near the fire.
Frank
Mike and Tracey, You do know that I'm not jokeing?. All kidding aside you could probably get your pick. I have A few live oaks here. They grow kinda like weeds down here. Branches go all over the place. Not familiar what savanna georgia. Have heard that live oak was preferred for building ship's during the civil war. Believe that they sought it out because of the natural curves for ship's framing. Frank

[seacoastartillery]

     Frank,   We were taking you seriously, so we studied up on Live Oak and here is what we found.  From various sources including forestry depts. of university extensions we found the reason why no lumber of this type, Quercus Virgianus (Southern Live Oak) is carried by any yard in the United States.  First is that very few pieces of straight lumber can be milled from the typical size tree. The very qualities which made it desirable for 18th and 19th century ship construction, lots of knees or large branch/trunk junctions yielding the "L" shaped knee used to support the heavy wooden decks, make it impossible to market today.  Unfortunately the second reason, that of being almost impossible to dry and lack of stability while drying, is worse.

     From Woodweb.com we get this:

Live oak is a separate category. It is extremely difficult to dry. It was often not dried at all. It is Quercus virginiana. It was used in ship building (especially in areas that might get hit from a cannonball, as the wood is extremely tough and hard).

Gene Wengert, forum technical advisor

     From every other source we looked at, we saw repeatedly this caution:

                      "If you are tempted to use Southern Live Oak in any type of furniture construction, please be aware that extreme warping, twisting and bowing can occur, even after kiln drying, causing the destruction of your carefully crafted piece."

     Finally, we really appreciate the offer Frank and it is really a shame that this wood cannot be put to a more constructive use than firewood, but for the reasons above we will have to keep on looking.  Thank you for thinking about us!

Best regards,

Tracy and Mike

[thelionspaw]

I didn't want to butt-in before and sound like a know-it-all but I'm glad T&M came up with that tid-bit.  There are over dozen species of "Oak" and the NORTHERN White Oak is what you want.  Beware when you only read, "Oak".  Specify Northern "White Oak".  For furniture, I always used Red Oak because it has certain inherent qualities that led itself to period furniture.

Richard "The Wood Butcher"

[Frank46]

Mike and Tracey, "KNEES" was the word that I was thinking about. The branches on a live oak that I have seen rarely grow straight in one direction. Have seen some that were over 200yrs old and it looks like a spider web of branches. Very interesting info on live oak. Too bad you can't get some english oak. Supposed to be some really good wood. Just a thought for those of you looking for oak for carriages. Had a friend years back who was a deacon at his church. Had to replace some church pews. Pretty thick stuff and hard enough. Wouldn't be suprised if they were made from oak. Frank

[Frank46]

Richard,beautiful furniture and beautiful work. Frank

[thelionspaw]

Thanks Frank.  You can amuse yourself for a while by clicking my website globe here and checking out some interesting things. Here's a sample of how a humble wood cutter lives on a dead-end dirt road in a mountain hollow that God forgot and only the Tax man can find.

Richard "The Has-Been"

[Articifer Tom]

 Hello Mike , Can you give the sizes of  Oak your looking for , my mill will cut anything . Also have some larger pieces in storage  .

[seacoastartillery]

     Tom,   We sure appreciate your interest, but we just solved our white oak problem.  It took quite a while, but we finally found a family owned business who has the capacity to saw and kiln-dry 12/4 clear, turning squares and some wood of that thickness with a width of 5, 6, and 7 inches, all this with a turn of only 10 weeks!  Can't pass this up, Tom,  Tracy and I really thank you for wanting to help out!

     We also want to extend a special hearty Thank You !!! to Richard, "The Sawmill Sleuth"  We have carefully filed and backed up all of the extensive sawmill info he passed along via this thread and the "Carriage Wood" thread as well. 

     After our order and the shipping arrangements are finalized we will post info on our new source so that others who need white oak won't have to spend 16 hours on the computer and 3 hours on the phone locating a source for white oak.  It's been quite a learning curve!!

We have not forgotten your generous offer, Frank.  Thank you!

Mike and Tracy

[thelionspaw]

See!?  There is always light at the end of the tunnel.

rc

[Frank46]

Richard, well the only woodworking of late has been putting up plywood all over the house, windows, doors and whatever. Which is a good thing as when this is over I'm gonna burn whatever plywood is left in the garage on one big fire. Course gustav may add to the blaze.
Mike and Tracey, told my wife about the regular oak tree by the house. She said "when are they comeing to take it down?". Had to bust her bubble. Using your postings I have two live oaks on my property. The rest are regular oaks. Frank

[Terry C.]

Frank, keep your head down and your powder dry!

We just got a good soaking here in southeastern GA from TS Fay. Some power outages and a few trees down, but nothing too bad. I'm not expecting much from Gustav if it holds its current course.

It's Hanna that worries me.

[seacoastartillery]

     I don't think we have thanked Brooks-USA, one of this board's sponsors yet publicly for their white oak sawmill suggestion.  Thank you Michael!  If your cannons are just half as good as one of our newest members, Rocklock1, says they are, then you are making some very fine cannon, indeed.

     We decided to get our 12/4 or 3.5" Rough, unsurfaced Northern White Oak lumber from:   Hickory & Oak Sawmilling, LLC
                                                                                                                             90931 52nd St.
                                                                                                                             Decatur, MI  49045
                                                                                                                         
                                                                                                                              Steve Van Osdol
                                                                                                                              Phone:  269-423-8178


     Mike and I ordered 212 board feet at $2.65/bf for $561.80.  This should last us one full year.  All of it is Northern White Oak, kiln-dried, rough lumber, 3.5" thick in varying widths from 3.5" to 7".  All of this wood is also "Clear" meaning NO KNOTS!  Plan on about two to three months turn around for this type of wood from this mill.  White Oak kiln drying cannot be rushed and they don't.  I believe their minimum is 100 bf, but call to make sure; I did not write that down.  We are getting 12 bundles of 70 pounds each via UPS or two pallets via common carrier so a cost of $170 to $250 must be factored in (for us just north of Denver, CO).

Regards,

Tracy and Mike

[Double D]

They are on the Internet resource list

[Frank46]

Terry C, thanks for the heads down. Finally managed to get the computer working. House came through fine. Had no juice for two days. Lotta branches and tree limbs down and as of monday afternoon have just about cleaned the mess up. Mike & Tracey, your oak tree is now missing two limbs and a bunch of branches. And I found out that it is what they call a "water oak". Couple yards down the road they lost two huge water oaks.
Root ball must be 30' in diameter. Glad I won't have to saw that mess up. We had winds in excess of 100mph but suprisingly the second wall was weaker than the first. But a lot of very huge trees are now only good for firewood. I can hear Gary gritting his teeth as I type this. Great to be back. Frank

[Cannoneer]

Frank46,

   Glad to hear that your family and house made it through the storm without any harm or damage.