Working With Burr Oak

   There is white oak and there is red oak, but most common around our home area is burr oak.   Sometimes it is spelled as bur oak      Although burr oak is a hard wood it is not as popular of a wood to work with as the red or the white.   You seldom will see burr oak for sale in a lumber yard.  
   I have worked with burr oak before and I can see why it is not the ideal hard wood to work with.   There are lots of little inflections and knots and the grain pattern seems a little sporadic.
   In the summer of 2012 a big burr oak tree gave up fighting against a wind storm and let the wind blow it over.   This big old heavy tree managed to fall on the house that my oldest son, Chad and his family, live in.    Needless to say it did some extensive damage.



   Chad hired someone to come to his acreage and as the tree was taken down.  He had the trunk sawed in to one inch thick boards.      The boards are about 13 to 14 inches wide.  This past fall I brought 5 of those boards home with me.
    I have been told that if the boards are not kiln dried (and these were not) that you should leave them stack in a shelter for 3 to 4 years so that they dry completely out.     I am guessing that these have been sheltered for about 18 months.  



                                              I do have a moisture tester and I did test these boards.    It was showing that the moisture level varied from 8 to 9 per cent.     Some like to see the boards at 6% to claim that they will be safe to use for a wood project.   If they are not dry, the wood could eventually crack or twist.  Anyway,  I'm impatient and wanted to try to build something from these "Burr Oak" boards and decided to give it a whirl.  (We will see how that works...)

      First of all, lumber milled is called "rough lumber" so the process I use to make it into finished lumber is as follows:   1.   I take the 13 inch wide boards that are about an inch thick, and rip them in half.    2.  I take those boards and run them through the planner until they are 3/4 of an inch thick - you can see all the wood shavings from five boards in the picture above.   3.   Then I smooth out one edge of each of the boards and glue the smooth edges of those boards back together. (Makes a lot of sense doesn't it?)  




      To the left are two boards that I have glued back together  -  side by side.   The picture to the left was four separate boards at one time.    The object is to get the glue line so tight that you can't hardly see where it is.   (So far so good.)

         The next step is to glue the two big boards together.   (Glue, Glue, and Glue.)    This process is a DAG thought process.   It seems that if you take a big board and cut in into smaller boards and then glue it back into a big board you end up with a stronger finished board.    It doesn't warp or twist.   It seems to hold it's shape a little longer.  





     These boards to the left are for the legs.    I am planning to build a hall bench with this wood.  My goal this week was to select the pieces of lumber that I planned to use and  trim off all the waste.    Next I cut all the pieces to match up to the material list for the plans used to make the bench.

     This is where I am at tonight.  I have a seat, a stretcher, four legs, and two end pieces.   (I also have a 15 gallon barrel of wood chips, a box of sawed off pieces of burr oak for a camp fire, and an empty bottle of glue.)
     Next week - assemble and stain and finish.   (I  hope.)

I don't think you understand.    I was listening real close last night when the president gave his "State of the Union"
speech  and although he promised a lot of good things that are to come, I did not hear anything about
equality for cats.   Yeah it's depressing I'm sure.   Maybe next election.     (Maybe not...  hee hee!)