Red oak
Species Names
The red oak group includes northern red oak (Quercus rubra), black oak (Q. velutina ), scarlet oak (Q. coccinea), shumard oak (Q. shumardii), pin oak (Q. palustris), Nuttall oak (Q. nuttallii), southern red oak (Q. falcata), water oak (Q. nigra), laurel oak (Q. laurifolia), and willow oak (Q. phellos).
Range
Red oaks grow quite generally east of the Great Plains except for a narrow coastal strip along the Gulf of Mexico and in Florida. The largest amounts of commercial timber are cut in Tennessee, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Missouri.
Properties
The red oaks are similar in many properties to the white oaks. A major difference is that red oak, because it lacks tyloses in its pores, is extremely porous. A heavy wood, it averages 44 pounds a cubic foot and the average specific gravity of the more important species ranges from 0.52 to 0.60. The wood is hard, stiff, and has high shock resistance.
Red oak undergoes large shrinkage while drying, and seasoning must be done carefully to avoid checking and warping. It is considerably above average in all machining operations except shaping, and the heartwood ranks low to moderate in decay resistance.
Uses
Most of the red oak cut in this country is converted into flooring, furniture, millwork, boxes and crates, caskets and coffins, agricultural implements, boats, and woodenware. Considerable lumber is also used in building construction, and some is exported. The hardness and wearing qualities of red oak have made it an important flooring wood for residences. Preservative-treated red oak is used extensively for crossties, mine timbers, and fence posts
Description
Heartwood is grayish brown witha more or less distinctive reddish tint. Pores are commonly open, and the outlines of the larger pores are distinct. On smoothly cut end-grain surfaces, the summerwood pores can be seen as individuals and readily counted when examined with a hand lens. Wood rays are commonly ΒΌ to 1 inch high along the gram. On end-grain surfaces, rays appear as lines crossing the growth
rings.