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Difference between Red Oak Wood and White Oak Wood

By Chancelier Wood Flooring

how to identify red oak and white oak

in many people’s eyes, red oak wood is the oak wood with red color and white oak wood is the oak wood with white color. As a matter of fact, red oak wood is not really of red color. The reason for its name, red oak, is that the leaves of red oak tree turns red in Autumn. And the origin of the name for white oak is not very clear in history yet.

Except the leaf color in autumn, there are still lots of difference between red oak wood and white oak wood.

1 difference in wood color

   red oak:  the sapwood color is white cream color or light brown,

                  the heartwood has pink color or pinkish brown color,

   white oak: the sapwood color is very light color, very white,

                    the heartwood has the color from light brown to dark brown.

  Usually, people without enough knowledge of hardwood, find it difficult to identify white oak wood and red oak wood.

White Oak Wood Color	Red Oak Wood Color

2 difference in cross section

From the magnifying lens, people could see among the red wood annual ring, there are lots of empty tubes of cells in the cross section. Comparatively, the tubes of cells of white oak wood among annual rings, are stuffed and full with something like dry wax. This is a very important factor to identify white oak and red oak.

Owing to those stuffed cell tubes, white oak has a distinguished feather of resistance against rottenness, borers and worms.Along with these special feathers and its  waterproof ability, white oak wood has been made into the wood barrels for wine for hundreds of years. And white oak flooring is more and more popular around the world now. On the other hand, red oak could not be used for wind barrels, but red oak wood could be made in to very high quality red oak wood furnitures and red oak flooring.

red oak
white oak

3 difference in medullar rays

medullar rays of red oak wood are usually very short, mostly from 1/8” to 1/2”;

medullar rays of white oak wood are longer, mostly more than 3/4”.

Red Oak Medullar Rays	Red Oak Medullar Rays

4 difference in testing of NaNO2

The testing of NaNO2 to identify white oak and red oak is very accurate. If people could not make sure about white oak wood and red oak wood, the test of NaNO2 would be a very reliable way for people to identify these two types of oak wood species.

  the liquid mixture with 10% NaNO2, will change the color of white oak, from light brown to blue, then purple, finally back.

  And red oak wood will have very little change in color.