Description
English oak, quarter-sawn — cut across the medullary rays so the silver ray fleck shows on the face, and so the board moves far less in a heated room than a flat-sawn one. This is the oak the cabinets are made from unless you ask for one of the figured oaks.
Posted free. The cost comes off your order if you go ahead. Samples are charged in full and are not part of the deposit and balance on a cabinet.
What you are looking at
Quarter-sawing is the reason this board looks the way it does. A log cut radially rather than straight through wastes a great deal more timber and costs more, and it buys two things: the board moves roughly half as much across its width as a flat-sawn one, and in oak it exposes the medullary ray — the silver flecking across the grain that people recognise in good English oak without knowing its name.
How it ages
Oak darkens. New oak is noticeably paler than old oak, and it goes from the colour of a new floor to the colour of an old one over about a decade whatever you put on it. If it has to sit beside something already old, say so and we will colour it forward rather than leave you waiting ten years.
Oak is also the most forgiving of the four. It marks, and the marks become patina rather than damage.
Oak, walnut or mahogany: choosing a timber · How we select and set out timber
