Wood Species
White Oak
Avg Life Span 550 years | Weight: 48 ft3 | Hardness: 1360 JankaThe odd cousin you only see at family reunions but is super chill when you talk to them.
The color of white oak isn't white as the name implies. It's tan. Unlike its super popular sister(red oak) white oak represents less than one fifth of all oak harvested in the United States.
It features a straight, coarse grain that when milled a certain way produces a rippled effect. This look is due to the medullary rays produced by quarter sawing the log. No one wants to say "medullary rays" more than absolutely necessary, so this is more commonly called "ray fleck". These usually appear at an angle to the wood grain, and look like rays of sunlight shining across the board.
Quarter sawing is done for strength and stability, so the ray flecks are just a happy accident. It's like when you didn't ask for the garlic dipping sauce, but they still gave it to you. What are you gonna do, not use it?
Hard Maple
Avg Life Span 250 years | Weight: 45 ft3 | Hardness: 1450 Janka
The neighbor twins who don't laugh at your jokes and bring out the trash cans to the road at exactly 6:00AM every Tuesday.
Hard maple sits on the lighter side of the hardwood spectrum. It has a creamy color that takes on a golden vibrancy once finish is applied. The grain is straight, fine, and smooth.
When quarter sawn, hard maple sometimes produces a "curly" appearance. These tight, undulating “ripple” effects look like ocean waves reaching out across the board.
Hard maple is actually an umbrella term used to describe the lumber of both sugar maple and black maple trees. The two trees are extremely similar and produce one of the hardest woods native to North America. Perhaps more importantly they also produce maple sap–the sole ingredient in pure maple syrup. Unfortunately by the time our products arrive at your doorstep they have lost all syrup superpowers.