How does red oak differ from other oaks?
Red oak resembles white oak and European oak in appearance, but its heartwood usually has a pinkish tinge. The vast geographical area over which red oak grows gives rise to greater variation in its structure and quality than is found in white oak. The timber is generally coarser in texture than the other two major oaks with smaller rays resulting in a less prominent silver grain figure so characteristic of oaks in general. These features of red oak enable a greater variety of colour and grain variations to be sorted thus allowing more diverse options with which designers can work. The working properties of red oak (machining, nailing, screwing and finishing) are similar to those of white oak, however, for gluing, red oak is superior. For structural applications, red oak is superior to European oak in strength and stiffness and is stronger in bending than white oak. Table of Design Values for use with Eurocode 5 and BS 5268-2 Due to its open pored structure, red oak is more easily penet
