What is oak wood
Oak wood,with scientific name of quercus spp,is mostly growing the tropical zones of the Northern Earth， such as northern Americas, East Asia and East Europe.As China does not allow the logging of oak for commercial use, most of oak wood planks are imported from Russia, Europe and USA.
Oak wood density:750g/cm3
Oak wood hardness:1360psi
the features of oak hardwood:
1 heartwood of oak has huge difference in color with sapwood
heartwood is a little brown, between yellowish brown and dark brown;
oak sapwood is usually white color, with a little yellow;
2 oak wood has very clear wood annual rings, and very beautifule wood grain;
oak wood grain looks very mountains or sea waves, with small shooting rays of dark brown,
3 density and hardness is moderate high, compared with brazilian teak or ipe,
4 oak wood surface is very fine and smooth, and it is easy to get staining,
Usually, oak wood is divided in two two types: white oak wood and red oak wood. As white oak is not really white and red oak is not really red, it is very difficult for ordinary people to identify the difference of which oak and red oak.
The main difference in white oak and red oak is the application.
Red oak is mostly suitable for wood furnitures and wood doors,wood flooring;
White oak is usually suitble for wood barrel for wine,hardwood flooring.
the advantage of oak wood
1 oak wood has clear beautiful mountain wood grain, and the wood surface feels very fine and smooth;
2 is impelling toughness is very excellent, oak wood could be made into kinds of beautiful curving wood items ;
3 oak is very hard with high density, with good stability in dimension, thus it is very resistant against rotting and the lifetime of oak wood could be nearly a hundred years.
4 with its beauty in grain and high density,oak wood is a very good material for high end wood furnitures, both in european style and Chinese traditional style;
5 on account to its high hardness, oak wood is not easy to be sawn,sanded and processed like other wood, such as ash wood, elm wood.
6 oak wood is more and more precious now after the logging of oak wood in big amount in the recent 100 years.
The disadvantage of oak wood
1 there is very few amount of oak hardwood with high grades, most of the oak hardwood has big tree knots,cracks and color difference.
2 sapwood of oak is vulnerable to worms and borer;
3 oak wood, if not kiln drying properly, would shrink and get cracking very easily;
4 Oak wood, looks like ash wood or chestnut wood. It is difficult for people to identify oak wood, ash wood and chestnut wood.
Usually oak wood from France and Russia is top quality, with little knots, oak wood from USA is in the middle level, and european oak wood from european is of low grade, with lots of knots,cracks and color difference.
