Laurel Oak question

Paul Downes

Member
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959
Location
Westphalia, Michigan
I spent some time down in Orlando Fl. recently and had the privilege of visiting some of my cousins and Aunt. Found out that my cousin has been doing some woodworking. He showed me a Laurel oak log that he had salvaged and cut into planks with a chainsaw.

I was immediately impressed by the curl figure of the wood and was wondering just how common curl is in Laurel oak.

He had no idea that the curl figure was highly desirable to woodworkers. I recommended he build a table out of the planks. One plank contained the pith and was badly cracked so I recommended sawing out the pith and edge gluing the resulting boards to the outer edge of the good plank. It should yield a 40" to 48" width table.

How is Laurel oak to work with? How often does curl figure occur in it? 20140920_181606.jpg20140920_181501.jpg
 
Laurel oak, is a good oak to work with if you have time for it to dry or send it out to kilm dry its also Know as live oak but smaller grain in the south great to stain with no blotches to worry about but you will need something to close the grain with its also similar to white oak an has lots of rays for figure
 
paul, i have seen some red oak that was quilted or rippled like your picture shows but in this case i think its just a saw kerf figure from the chainsaw..the best way to tell is to smooth out a spot where it shows up well and see if it stays.. as for staining and finishing it works well..

this link shows a picture of some quilted oak paul,, and it also says its not real common..LINK
 
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Trust me Larry the whole trunk has real good curl pattern. My first reaction when he pulled the tarp off was saw kerf, but it didn't take more than a couple of seconds and a close look to see the real deal. I've had 20 curly Maple logs all lined up for a buyer and found it interesting that the curl width and pattern differed so much between logs. No two alike. Looking on the web and from past experience it seems the same thing with oak. I have seen oak figure that reminds me of waterfall bubinga and other logs, like my cousins, that has a pattern more like curly maple.
 
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