Matching red oak boards

Re: Matching red oak boards

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

You have discovered a limitation of red oak in fine furniture.

A strategy to make panels is to what I call "jack-knife fold" the cuttings. It works best when there is rift grain on the edges. Make a cutting and fold this cutting back on the first piece like closing a jack knife. Repeat for 3 board panel. If the coarse flat grain pattern runs out to the edge of the board there isn't any way to match to it with out a clash.

Re: Matching red oak boards

paul in AZ

Frustrating!

One solution is to leave the boards out but not think about it for a day or three. Coming back to it with a fresh eye could let the optimal match 'sing' to you.

A saving grace is that only you or another woodworker will notice this. The average person neither notices or cares if grain patterns are perfectly matched.

Re: Matching red oak boards

Barry Irby

I was doing this with White Oak. I had lots of "shorts" and decided they would be good for a couple of night stands. A major consideration for making the night stands was to use up the shorts and scraps and not cut up any more of the good stuff. I have got the legs and the rails and bottom shelf looking good, but the tops look like crap. I will continue working on the rest of it hoping the tops will grow on me. In the end, I may make new tops. ALL this wood came out of the same tree.

I feel your pain and frustration.

Re: Matching red oak boards

Don Stephan

You might consider trimming the width of boards as needed and using 5 or even 6 to try to get a near consistent spacing between the ovals and arches. As already said, when the ovals and arches extend to the edge of a board getting a pleasing look is quite the challenge.

"rift grain edges"

GolfSteve in Calgary

"rift grain edges" is the key. Select your boards so that they have straight grain at the edges and you can do a decent job of making the joints unnoticeable.

For the most part I don't like the look of cathedral grain so I avoid those boards altogether.

Re: Matching red oak boards

Johanna Johanson

Paul, I am making dressers for our bedroom, so I am the one who will have to look at them for years! I now have one nice grouping ready for glue-up. Now to get a second grouping. Funny thing is that when I assembled the four sides I was able to get really nice matches with no problem.

If I cannot get another good set I'll go down to the lumber yard with a couple of boards and see if I can buy just one more board to match. Thank goodness this is red oak and relatively cheap!

I have a mahogany sofa table that always has a cloth runner on it because the boards on the top were assembled "backwards". I made it in a class I took 25 years ago. I had to miss the class where glue-up was done, so someone in the class assembled my top for me!

Re: Matching red oak boards

Ellis Walentine

Flat sawn red oak is notorious for its difficulty of matching grain attractively. Rift or quartered material is a lot more accommodating but pretty boring IMO. One trick Ian Kirby showed me was to disregard the edges of the roughsawn boards and compose your finish grain patterns at whatever angles/tapers work best. With oak and similar ring-porous species, I've even left boards tapered in the final glue-up to show the nicest blend of grain across the panel.

Ellis