Old Dark Wood Tables - How Can I Tell If They're Oak ?
Discussion
I'm building a camper and want to build a couple of tables
It's far cheaper to re purpose old wood than buy new and I enjoy tinkering - the 1920-60's tables are available from almost nothing
Are there any easy ways to tell what the wood used is likely to be, it doesn't have to be oak but I'd want it much lighter than the dark furniture
It's far cheaper to re purpose old wood than buy new and I enjoy tinkering - the 1920-60's tables are available from almost nothing
Are there any easy ways to tell what the wood used is likely to be, it doesn't have to be oak but I'd want it much lighter than the dark furniture
If by dark furniture or ‘brown furniture’ you mean the 30s type stuff your gran had, the timber most likely isn’t that colour naturally, it will have been stained to give that appearance. Hard to say how to actually identify what’s lurking under the finish, maybe look at the undersides where the timber is unfinished. One giveaway for quarter sawn oak is the presence of medullary rays going across the grain.
I haven't bought any yet
Yes the horrid dark brown almost black stuff your granny had
I know it will have been stained, on some you can see wide grain planks - I presume they are pine, on some you can't see other than that they are planks
I'm blissfully ignorant of what the majority of these would have been made of - google isn't helping much as keeps directing to USA content but I thought most were oak
It's not the cost (some are almost free) it's that none have come up close yet
Yes the horrid dark brown almost black stuff your granny had
I know it will have been stained, on some you can see wide grain planks - I presume they are pine, on some you can't see other than that they are planks
I'm blissfully ignorant of what the majority of these would have been made of - google isn't helping much as keeps directing to USA content but I thought most were oak
It's not the cost (some are almost free) it's that none have come up close yet
ATG said:
To my very untrained eye, that could indeed be oak.
Agreed.Other furniture could equally well be stained pine. But both oak and pine are light coloured woods so it's really down to which grain you prefer the look of. To me pine looks very 1980s and oak is a cold colour. I prefer beech or ash.
If you are struggling to tell from the grain. (Pine is very wide, open grain whereas Oak is more patterned and tighter) then get a blunt screw and without any pilot hole insert it with a screwdriver by hand somewhere discreet. If you can, then it's pine or another softwood. Another way would be to rubdown a sample of endgrain to remove the finish and drop a little oil based stain on it. If it sinks in after a few hours it's softwood.
Old brown furniture was hugely mass produced for about 40 years. Generally, the really early stuff will be Oak but as time went on and the market grew companies would use whatever was cheaply available so you're more likely to find Ash and lots of Pine from Eastern Europe.
Old brown furniture was hugely mass produced for about 40 years. Generally, the really early stuff will be Oak but as time went on and the market grew companies would use whatever was cheaply available so you're more likely to find Ash and lots of Pine from Eastern Europe.
Gassing Station | Homes, Gardens and DIY | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff