Hardwood & Clear Grade Softwood Timber Suppliers

SPECIES



Smee Timber Ltd is established as one of Britain's leading and most comprehensive hardwood importing and manufacturing companies, offering an enormous choice of timber to manufacturers and users.

 

 

 

Products

 

Hardwoods:

Clear Grade Softwoods:

Machined Timber Profiles:

Flooring:

 

 

 

 

American White Oak

TEMPERATE HARDWOOD

Family:

 Fagaceae

Latin Name:

 Quercus spp

Distribution:

 Eastern USA and South Eastern Canada.

Uses:

 Milder than European oak to work and suitable for furniture and cabinetmaking, joinery, heavy construction, parquet and strip flooring, pews and pulpits, boat-building, ladder rungs, agricultural implements, wagon bottoms, tight cooperage and coffins. Rotary cut for plywood and sliced for highly ornamental veneers for panelling and decorative veneering.

General Description:
White Oak varies in colour from pale yellow-brown to biscuit with a pinkish tint, similar to European oak. Straight grain, with the characteristic silver grain on quartered material. Appalachian oak is slow grown producing light weight, mild wood, but southern states produce fast grown oak with wide growth rings, and a harder, tougher timber. Medium to coarse textured. Weight averages 760 kg/m3 (47 lb/ft3); specific gravity .76.  

Mechanical Properties:
The timber has medium bending and crushing strengths with low stiffness which makes it an excellent steam bending material.  

Seasoning:
Dries relatively slowly with a tendency to check, split and honeycomb, and requires careful handling for air drying and kilning. There is medium movement in service.  

Durability:
Logs are liable to severe insect attack. The heartwood is durable and extremely resistant to preservative treatment, and the sapwood is moderately resistant.  

Other Names:

White oak (USA); chestnut oak (USA); overcup oak (USA); swamp chestnut oak (USA). Also marketed with regional names, e.g. Appalachian oak, northern or southern oak.