Handmade Collection

Please read before purchasing green oak furniture

Sometimes referred to as part seasoned, and generally wearing the tag as fresh sleepers or green oak beams. Also occasionally and wrongly called furniture grade oak beams.

Green oak or part seasoned oak is called so due to its high water content which is present in all trees before and after they are felled and dried out. Green oak takes approximately 1 year per inch to dry so a standard oak beam could take as long as 5 years. Green oak beams start seasoning as soon as they are felled yet are only between 6 months to a maximum of 2 years seasoned by the time they are made into furniture. For this reason any green oak furniture that is directly in contact with anything that can be damaged by moisture should be protected from direct contact.

Seasoned oak is kiln dried, and is used for more traditional furniture. This process increases the price of the oak significantly. Hence green oak beams or sleepers being used for this style of furniture as the cost of the oak (if available) would be more than the cost of the green oak beam furniture itself.

The Oak can be European (generally French) or Canadian Oak. There is of course English Oak which is highly prized and it would be like winning the lottery to find unused English Oak beams. European Oak sleepers do have more features and waney edges than Canadian Oak which is far cleaner and has a tighter grain, but it is also far more prone to splitting and warping than the Canadian Oak. In my opinion this is in part due to the tight grain in the Canadian which causes the beams to dry much slower nevertheless All GREEN OAK WILL SPLIT, and will generally arrive with splits to varying degrees. However this can be controlled to some extent by waxing the oak especially the end grain. The best wax i have found to use is beeswax and it cannot be stressed enough that after a week or so in your home that waxing the beams is needed im order to help the drying process. Excessive drying in Green Oak can cause excessive splitting but depends on what effect you are after and it is mainly down to aftercare such as waxing as to whether excessive splitting will have any significant effect on the finished product. If in doubt always ask. Green Oak may also shrink. If these efeects are not what you require please do not buy green oak, or ask for advice.

One more extremely good point about Canadian oak is that due to import laws the beams are much more uniform and treated (non dangerous) for infestations such as woodworm whereas European oak is well known for these problems. This may sound that I am favouring Canadian oak, however this is not the case and it depends on the situation, and French oak beams can be extremely beautiful if selected correctly and treated accordingly. I use both French and Canadian equally.

There is of course the wrongly used tag of Furniture grade oak beams. Furniture grade is simply the same oak cut slightly deeper into the tree which has no waney edge or sap. All green oak beams are cut from the outer edge of the oak tree in order to get to the high quality heartwood which can then be cut in many different ways for different effects on the grain. One of these cuts is known as quarter sawn and is available as kiln dried, it is almost the most expensive cut. Furniture grade Oak is not simply cleaner cut beams with no sap or waney edge. After all who is to say that people do not want these features in their furniture, I know that whilst working with timbers from all over the world that the sap and waney edges are sometimes as beautiful as the wood itself. The correct meaning for Furniture grade oak beams is very simply untreated oak that is safe to touch, and not been coated with tar or other treatments that are unfriendly to humans or animals.

Using Oak Beams

Oak beams are available in many different sizes however the more common size is approximately 22cm x 13cm x 260cm these are the sizes I generally use for my Oak Beam Coffee Tables , Oak Beam Dining Tables , and Oak Beam Bookcases although the bookcase shelves are cut down from the same size beams.

I use many different joining methods for green oak including traditional mortise and tennon joints, half lap joints and dowels. Although the glue used is not the usual PVA as it will not hold due to the moisture content of the oak.

Please not I cannot be held responsible for failure to to take note of any information, advice, or aftercare instructions of green oak products.