Oak is the most commonly used native Hardwood in the UK, mainly out of tradition – it was frequently used in centuries past for several reasons – the dense hard wood being very durable to moisture makes it a good building material and the difficult to dent timber means it is good for flooring and hard-wearing tabletops. However, its main reason for use before the age of efficient saws and sawmills was its ability to be cleft, that is split into rough boards down the length of the grain with wedges, then smoothed flat with planes for furniture and flooring. The resultant cleft timber would always follow the grain perfectly, revealing the silvery medullary rays on the face and the bonus of such boards being that they are very stable with little shrinkage and warping potential. Boards produced these days at a sawmill with the same silver rays effect are called ‘quarter sawn’ and have a higher value than ‘crown cut’ boards, and any wood that is cut quarter sawn will be much more stable, not just oak.
Oak is not, however, an easy timber to work as it blunts tools quickly and is so hard it is difficult to sand smooth. The edges splinter easily so gloves are often wise when handling oak. Boards of any thickness can sometimes show patchy colour in the core, possibly a side effect of the slow seasoning process. Boards are given 2 years per inch of board thickness to season. Oak generally has a large movement in service so will warp/twist/cup/bow readily with small changes in moisture (far less so with quarter sawn) and ends will split if boards are put too near to high heat sources.
