Bog Oak The Jubilee Table

[NickM]

You try and get regular British oak 13m long anymore! I think if you asked for it they'd laugh you out of the sawmill.

Priceless would be an understatement!

This reminds me of when I was recently trying to order some oak from an online retailer for a door I made. I couldn't figure out why the price was coming out at £250,000 until I realised all of the dimensions were in mm apart from the length which was metres. I think I was trying to order over 10km of oak...

 

[Distinterior]

I have made a start on a small Bog Oak presentation box from a small section I was lucky enough to get at the sale.

Here are a few pictures of the rough planed sections......Its a joy to be given the opportunity to work with such a rare material.

 

[marcros]

I have made a start on a small Bog Oak presentation box from a small section I was lucky enough to get at the sale.

Here are a few pictures of the rough planed sections......Its a joy to be given the opportunity to work with such a rare material.

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is it a joy to work the timber, or is it hard going?

I haven't used any, so it is a genuine question. I imagine it to be rock hard!

 

[MikeG.]

I find it easier than every day oak. It is slightly more waxy, less brittle. Difficult to describe, but it is dense yet not hard. I haven't managed to find a way of getting tear-out in it whilst planing, but nonetheless can't even begin to imagine how they'll flatten 45 feet of the stuff in one board.

 

[Distinterior]

I have made a start on a small Bog Oak presentation box from a small section I was lucky enough to get at the sale.

Here are a few pictures of the rough planed sections......Its a joy to be given the opportunity to work with such a rare material.

View attachment 20190507

View attachment 20190507

View attachment 20190507

is it a joy to work the timber, or is it hard going?

I haven't used any, so it is a genuine question. I imagine it to be rock hard!

It is harder material than normal Oak and substantially heavier for its size, but I haven't found it that much more difficult to cut on the Bandsaw, for example.

For the initial machining on my Planer Thicknesser, i never bothered to change the knives from those that had seen use on other materials that I've machined recently. I am going to fit new knives when I take the sections down to their final thickness.

It does seem odd though, looking in the bag of my Dust Extractor, to see all the Black sawdust & chippings....!!!

The Bog Oak has a really silky feel & look to it and a really noticeable density if that makes any sense...? The growth rings of the wood are really close together......

Edit. My post has overlapped with Mike,....Sorry.

 

[Trainee neophyte]

The deeper you dig into Bog Oak the more mysterious it becomes, if Merlin ever commissioned a piece of furniture I bet he would have specified Bog Oak!

Normal Oak weighs around 600-700Kg per cubic metre, but similarly dry Bog Oak can weigh up to 1000Kg per cubic metre. While not the heaviest timber in the world, that's heavier than many Rosewoods or Ebonies, astonishing from a British tree.

And the ring count is off the scale. These are just some random pieces from my timber store, starting with Bog Oak,


As you can see the growth rings are often in the range 0.5-1.0mm. That's phenomenally slow growing. Compare that with modern Oak where the growth rings can be in the range 3-5mm.


I've heard a few different theories to account for this, that it was much colder when these trees grew, that they're a different species of Oak, or that they shrink during drying much more than modern Oak and so are artificially dense. I've no idea which, if any, of these are true. But when you touch this wood there's no doubt that you're holding something absolutely unique and precious.

Just a thought, but it might be due to a much lower carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere: at the end of the last ice age, CO2 levels were so low, almost everything plant based was struggling to survive, and white a lot of it didn't. If the tree can't get enough carbon for photosynthesis, it's not going to grow well.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/06/30/ ... ittle-co2/

There is such a thing as too little CO2, but don't tell the climate change people, or they may have to kill you.