# new oak article, would appreciate feedback



## phinds (Aug 9, 2019)

A new article on my web site. Would appreciate any feedback (more interested in finding flaws than in positive feedback)

distinguishing the red, white, and live oaks

Thanks,

Paul

Reactions: Way Cool 1 | Informative 1


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## Nature Man (Aug 9, 2019)

Opening argument states there are 3 basic types of Oaks. Then the next section states that Live Oak can be either White or Red. Logically, I would conclude there are actually 2 types of Oaks. Chuck


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## phinds (Aug 9, 2019)

Nature Man said:


> Opening argument states there are 3 basic types of Oaks. Then the next section states that Live Oak can be either White or Red. Logically, I would conclude there are actually 2 types of Oaks.  Chuck


Thanks. Yeah, the breakdown is very arbitrary in some ways. If I wanted to get really technical, I would have pointed out that botanists distinguish chestnut oaks as a separate grouping within the white oak group.

I'm going to change the opening to:



> The basic types of oak can be categorized in different ways. The fundamental categorization is red and white and all oaks fall into one of those two groups. There is, however, a readily distinguishable third group that is actually taken from the red group AND the white group, and that is the live oaks. So, generally it is taken that there are three basic types.

Reactions: Agree 1


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## kweinert (Aug 9, 2019)

Logically I would have concluded that there were 4 types of oak :) red, white, live red, live white. Just goes to show that logic isn't necessarily all that logical.

But your rewording takes care of that ambiguity.

The only other thing I'd note (and this is extremely minor) is that in every section your discussion and images are in the order red, white. Except for the 'anatomy' section where the images are white and then red.

Reactions: Useful 1


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## Karl_TN (Aug 9, 2019)

This article was an enjoyable read, and should make a nice addition to your website. Thanks for sharing.

Btw, have you done anything similar for the Hard vs Soft Maples?

-Karl


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## phinds (Aug 9, 2019)

Karl_TN said:


> Btw, have you done anything similar for the Hard vs Soft Maples?
> 
> -Karl


not yet, mainly 'cause they're much harder to distinguish


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## phinds (Aug 9, 2019)

kweinert said:


> The only other thing I'd note (and this is extremely minor) is that in every section your discussion and images are in the order red, white. Except for the 'anatomy' section where the images are white and then red.


Good catch. Yeah, I noticed that myself but sort of slid over it but I think I'll change it. Thanks.


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## phinds (Aug 9, 2019)

OK, I've updated the article on the site with the two changes discussed so far (same link)


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## FranklinWorkshops (Aug 9, 2019)

Good article, Paul. Another thing I noticed in fuming the oaks with ammonia. Red and White are totally different in their reaction to the fumes.


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## phinds (Aug 9, 2019)

FranklinWorkshops said:


> Good article, Paul. Another thing I noticed in fuming the oaks with ammonia. Red and White are totally different in their reaction to the fumes.


Hey, good point, thanks. I've never done fuming but am aware of it. Still, I completely forgot about it. I'll research that. I've only heard of fuming white oak. What has your experience been?


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## FranklinWorkshops (Aug 9, 2019)

phinds said:


> Hey, good point, thanks. I've never done fuming but am aware of it. Still, I completely forgot about it. I'll research that. I've only heard of fuming white oak. What has your experience been?


Red oak, in my experience, takes on a greenish and dull color, not the golden rich brown color I get with white oak. The old mission furniture style made famous by Stickley featured fumed quarter-sawn white oak. Here is an article on it:

Reactions: Informative 1


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## trc65 (Aug 9, 2019)

Very good article. Helped me understand the differences much better.

My only question/comment: does ray flake length in live oaks follow the same short/long flake characterization (for red/white) as non-live oaks? 

After reading the article, I assume it does, but don't know for sure.


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## phinds (Aug 9, 2019)

trc65 said:


> Very good article. Helped me understand the differences much better.
> 
> My only question/comment: does ray flake length in live oaks follow the same short/long flake characterization (for red/white) as non-live oaks?
> 
> After reading the article, I assume it does, but don't know for sure.


Yes but in my personal experience the live oaks in the red oak group tend to have slightly fatter rays than normal red oaks so the flakes are often wider than normal red oak and sometimes a bit longer but still not likely to be confused with white oak.

Reactions: Thank You! 1


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## phinds (Aug 9, 2019)

I have added another section showing that the size of the ray flakes on a quartersawn surface is not always a reliable discriminator. Same link as above:

distinguishing the red, white, and live oaks


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## Mr. Peet (Aug 10, 2019)

*The oaks: red, white, and live
*
line 7, "the red oaks --- ring porous with no tylosis and strong rays"

tylosis is the singular of tyloses. I think you wanted the second form, however, more importantly your statement is misleading. Red oaks can have tyloses, they are just in such small numbers that you do not readily find them, or so small that they are not readily seen with the naked eye.
*
telling live oaks from the others*

line 1, remove the word 'normal'. There are more live oak species in the world than species found in the temperate forest. You are making a comparison, dropping the word normal keeps it simple.

paragraph 4, line 2, remove the word 'no' and replace with 'little' or 'little to no', "there is no difference in size between earlywood pores and latewood pores"

It would be nice if you had the Latin name under the first 3 pictures

*red vs white --- don't rely on color*

Line 1, second sentence, remove the second use of 'are', "There are some pieces of red oak that are you can tell are almost certainly red oak "

*red vs white --- ray flakes on flat cut surfaces*

line 2, second word and 14th word, typo, 'relative' should be 'relatively'

*red vs white --- an example where ray flakes 
on quartersawn surfaces are not a reliable differentiator.*

another reason you could have pointed out was that with the two woods shown, the ray width from the endgrain view was wider on average with the red oak versus the white oak. This is directly expressed in the face grain view. However this occurrence is an exception based on statistics....

*red vs white --- using wood anatomy*

Paragraph 1, line 2, 'typo' tylosis versus tyloses and the word ' never'. I'd add the word 'almost', "almost never do."
The tyloses thing repeats several times in this section.

*red vs white --- the soda straw test*

I sometimes use dish soap with water. It seems to bubble better and the kids like it too.

Overall, a great addition to your site.

Reactions: Like 1


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## rocky1 (Aug 10, 2019)

*The oaks; red, white, and live *




> There are, depending on what source you *belive*, somewhere between 600 and 900 species of oak but of course most of them are obscure and not generally available. At just a wild guess, I'd say there are probably 200 or so species world wide that are used for lumber and/or artisan work in the various countries of their growth range.
> 
> The basic types of oak can be categorized in different ways. The fundamental categorization is red and white and all oaks fall into one of those two groups. There is, however, a readily distinguishable third group that is actually taken from the red group AND the white group, and that is the live oaks. So, generally it is taken that there are three basic types.
> 
> ...




First line E is missing after I in believe.
Personally, I would eliminate "the" in the unordered list at end of this section, it's a useless word, serves no purpose, and is redundant. 
*

telling live oaks from the others*



> The live oaks can be either white oak or red oak, and they will or will not have tylosis accordingly. The live oaks are very easy to distinguish from normal oaks via the end grain. Lives oaks are *diffuse porous, which means* they do not have the otherwise characteristic row of large earlywood pores.
> 
> Ring porous means there is a row (or several rows) of large earlywood pores at the beginning of each growth ring, abruptly changing to much smaller pores for the rest of the growth ring. You can clearly see this in the end grain cross sections below for red oak and white oak.
> 
> *Diffuse porous means *that the pores are randomly distributed throughout the growth ring or sometimes they are a bit more organized, such as the radial strands shown in the live oak below. In either case, there is no difference in size between earlywood pores and latewood pores and growth rings are often quite indistinct.




Too many "diffuse porous means" here, with your Ring porous tossed in the middle, like you're talking in circles, gets a tad confusing. Could maybe rearrange to try and organize the thought...



Live oaks can be either white oak or red oak, and they will or will not have tylosis accordingly. They are very easy to distinguish from normal oaks via the end grain. Lives oaks are "Diffuse Porous", meaning they do not have the otherwise characteristic row of large earlywood pores, the pores are randomly distributed throughout the growth ring or sometimes they are a bit more organized, such as the radial strands shown in the live oak below. In either case, there is no difference in size between earlywood pores and latewood pores and growth rings are often quite indistinct.

To differentiate, "Ring Porous" means there is a row (or several rows) of large earlywood pores at the beginning of each growth ring, abruptly changing to much smaller pores for the rest of the growth ring. You can clearly see this in the end grain cross sections below for red oak and white oak.


*red vs white --- don't rely on color*



> Color is NOT a good distinguishing characteristic among the oaks. There are some pieces of red oak *that are you can tell are* almost certainly red oak based on color and similarly for white oaks, BUT ... that is never 100% reliable. I have seen plenty of white oak that could easily be mistaken for red oak and vice versa. The rays in white oak tend to be longer than in red oak and quartersawn pieces can sometimes *be distinguished the ray flakes*, with white oak being noticeably longer than those in red oak. Again, though, that is rarely a guarantee. If you see a very old piece of furniture, tables in particular, with really large, long ray flakes, you can bet money that it will be white oak, but otherwise, you might just be guessing.




Not sure where you were going on the first line highlighted here, on the second distinguished should have a "by" behind it. 

*red vs white --- using wood anatomy*



> At the level of shop work (sandpaper or a sharp cutter and a 10X loupe) red and white can be reliably distinguished by the fact that most pores in white oak show tylosis and those in red oak never do. This is much easier to see if you use a sharp cutting edge to expose the end grain rather than sanding because sanding will clog up the pores and obscure the tylosis. Even with just sanding, however, you can tell for sure that you have a red oak if a lot of the pores are obviously open in the end. If they are all clogged up with sanding dust then you might have either kind of oak.
> 
> Tylosis is a shiny substance and the pores that are clogged with it look a bit like tiny little round windows that have been smashed up and glued back together with the pieces crooked. It is difficult on my own white oak samples below to tell that there is tylosis (even though there is) because I fine-sand my samples rather than using razor cuts and the pores are usually filled with fine dust which obscures the tylosis. *To clearly show what the tylosis looks like* in white oak, I found a couple of pics on the Internet and use them here *to show what the tylosis looks like* and the difference between that and red oak which has no tylosis (the clogging in some of the red oak pores in both the pic here and the ones below in my own red oak samples is not tylosis).
> 
> When looking for tylosis, you should avoid the sapwood because white oak does not always have a lot of tylosis in the sapwood but it always will in the heartwood. Not EVERY pore will be clogged with tylosis at the point where you expose it, but most will.




Maybe try...

I found a couple of pics on the Internet and use them here *to show what the tylosis looks like* in white oak, and the difference between that and red oak which has no tylosis (the clogging in some of the red oak pores in both the pic here and the ones below in my own red oak samples is not tylosis)


Overall... Interesting piece.

-- Need to work on capitalization and consistency in your section titles.
-- There are several times you refer to "here" versus the "the Internet" throughout, one in the last referenced section above, another in the Sodium Nitrite section. Want to say I maybe saw it someplace else but I could be mistaken... "Here" is "the Internet"
-- For a technical piece, and from a point of Search Engine Optimization, over use of the word "the" prior to subject nouns in places. Kinda like the unordered list above, it seems a bit redundant. From an SEO point, search engines establish a hierarchical order of importance on the page from the beginning of the page, the beginning of the paragraph, the beginning of the sentence. Your most important keywords should lead in titles and paragraphs top of the page, keywords should lead paragraphs, and sentences as you go down the page. While "the" is typically set aside by search engines as overused fluff, because it's an unimportant meaningless word, placing it in front of a keyword in your paragraph/sentence order tells the search engine that you consider your keyword less important than meaningless fluff. 

i.e. -




> *The* "live" oaks are called live because they keep their leaves throughout the year, unlike normal oaks which drop their leaves. Actually, I have it anecdotally that some live oaks do drop most or all of their leaves but are still classified as live oaks.
> 
> *The* live oaks can be either white oak or red oak, and they will or will not have tylosis accordingly. *The *live oaks are very easy to distinguish from normal oaks via the end grain. Lives oaks are diffuse porous, which means they do not have the otherwise characteristic row of large earlywood pores.
> 
> ...




While "Live oaks" leading every sentence noted therein, is likewise a tad redundant, in a technical piece and from an SEO point of view, it is a more appropriate state of redundancy.


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## phinds (Aug 11, 2019)

Mr. Peet said:


> *The oaks: red, white, and live
> *
> line 7, "the red oaks --- ring porous with no tylosis and strong rays"
> 
> tylosis is the singular of tyloses. I think you wanted the second form


 Great catch, Mark. Somehow I thought I was using the plural throughout. I have now changed this throughout


> however, more importantly your statement is misleading. Red oaks can have tyloses, they are just in such small numbers that you do not readily find them, or so small that they are not readily seen with the naked eye.


Thanks, didn't know that & have made changes throughout accordingly
*



telling live oaks from the others

Click to expand...

*


> line 1, remove the word 'normal'. There are more live oak species in the world than species found in the temperate forest. You are making a comparison, dropping the word normal keeps it simple.


Disagree. Need an adjective to separate non-live oak from live oaks, did not like "non-live" so settled on "normal". Meaning seems clear in context.



> paragraph 4, line 2, remove the word 'no' and replace with 'little' or 'little to no', "there is no difference in size between earlywood pores and latewood pores"


changed, thanks



> It would be nice if you had the Latin name under the first 3 pictures


Why? Nowhere in this article am I trying to show specific species but rather just the characteristics of the groups.

*



red vs white --- don't rely on color

Click to expand...

*


> Line 1, second sentence, remove the second use of 'are', "There are some pieces of red oak that are you can tell are almost certainly red oak "


badly edited sentence, fixed, thanks.

*



red vs white --- ray flakes on flat cut surfaces

Click to expand...

*


> line 2, second word and 14th word, typo, 'relative' should be 'relatively'


AAACCCKKK !!! As a grammar nitpicker, I am falling woefully short here. Fixed. Thanks.

*



red vs white --- an example where ray flakes 
on quartersawn surfaces are not a reliable differentiator.

Click to expand...

*


> another reason you could have pointed out was that with the two woods shown, the ray width from the endgrain view was wider on average with the red oak versus the white oak. This is directly expressed in the face grain view. However this occurrence is an exception based on statistics....


Have fixed this, I feel, by adding the following "Statistically, this occurrence of red oak flakes being as wide/long as or wider/longer than white oak is an anomaly, but my point is that it DOES happen, so you have to be careful."

*



red vs white --- using wood anatomy

Click to expand...

*


> Paragraph 1, line 2, 'typo' tylosis versus tyloses and the word ' never'. I'd add the word 'almost', "almost never do."
> The tyloses thing repeats several times in this section.


all fixed, thanks.

*



red vs white --- the soda straw test

Click to expand...

*


> I sometimes use dish soap with water. It seems to bubble better and the kids like it too.
> 
> Overall, a great addition to your site.


added a note about this, thanks.


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## phinds (Aug 11, 2019)

rocky1 said:


> *The oaks; red, white, and live *
> First line E is missing after I in believe.
> Personally, I would eliminate "the" in the unordered list at end of this section, it's a useless word, serves no purpose, and is redundant.


agree. Done. I had already found the spelling error, but thanks for pointing it out since I might not have. My text editor does red underlining of mis-spelled words but somehow I always manage to overlook simple typos even though it shows them.
*



telling live oaks from the others

Click to expand...

*


> Too many "diffuse porous means" here, with your Ring porous tossed in the middle, like you're talking in circles, gets a tad confusing. Could maybe rearrange to try and organize the thought...


You're right, Rocky, this was not well done. Have fixed by moving all definitions out of the early sentences and setting off the definitions as a bulleted list. Thanks.


> *red vs white --- don't rely on color*
> Not sure where you were going on the first line highlighted here, on the second distinguished should have a "by" behind it.


poor editing on my part, fixed, thanks.


> *red vs white --- using wood anatomy*
> Maybe try...
> 
> I found a couple of pics on the Internet and use them here *to show what the tylosis looks like* in white oak, and the difference between that and red oak which has no tylosis (the clogging in some of the red oak pores in both the pic here and the ones below in my own red oak samples is not tylosis)


had already changed based on Mark's comments to "To clearly show what the tyloses look like". Your suggestion would have worked just as well.


> Overall... Interesting piece.


Thanks.


> -- Need to work on capitalization and consistency in your section titles.


Thanks. Have fixed by removing all capitals. Technically, I should have added capitals but as a young man I was bitten by e.e. cummings and have never recovered.


> -- There are several times you refer to "here" versus the "the Internet" throughout, one in the last referenced section above, another in the Sodium Nitrite section. Want to say I maybe saw it someplace else but I could be mistaken... "Here" is "the Internet"


Disagree. "here" throughout means "in this article".


> -- For a technical piece, and from a point of Search Engine Optimization, over use of the word "the" prior to subject nouns in places. Kinda like the unordered list above, it seems a bit redundant. From an SEO point, search engines establish a hierarchical order of importance on the page from the beginning of the page, the beginning of the paragraph, the beginning of the sentence. Your most important keywords should lead in titles and paragraphs top of the page, keywords should lead paragraphs, and sentences as you go down the page. While "the" is typically set aside by search engines as overused fluff, because it's an unimportant meaningless word, placing it in front of a keyword in your paragraph/sentence order tells the search engine that you consider your keyword less important than meaningless fluff.
> 
> i.e.
> 
> While "Live oaks" leading every sentence noted therein, is likewise a tad redundant, in a technical piece and from an SEO point of view, it is a more appropriate state of redundancy.


Although I don't really care about search engines, I gave this some thought, starting with the point of view that you were just stating a valid point of view but that my use was actually OK, and ending up having realized that this really does look like grammatical sloppiness. "The oaks" is a legitimate term, as would be "the maples", etc, but none the less I think you are right and have removed the extraneous "the"s. Thanks.


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## phinds (Aug 11, 2019)

@Mr. Peet and @rocky1 thanks very much for having taken the time to do such thorough and thoughtful reviews. Very helpful and I appreciate it.

Reactions: Like 2


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## Mr. Peet (Aug 11, 2019)

"It would be nice if you had the Latin name under the first 3 pictures"

Why? Nowhere in this article am I trying to show specific species but rather just the characteristics of the groups.

True, I realize such, just a suggestion as many may try to recreate what you have done for themselves or for others.

line 1, remove the word 'normal'. There are more live oak species in the world than species found in the temperate forest. You are making a comparison, dropping the word normal keeps it simple.

Disagree. Need an adjective to separate non-live oak from live oaks, did not like "non-live" so settled on "normal". Meaning seems clear in context.

Yes, normal could fit from a northern hemisphere perspective. I believe Mexico has 80-100 species of oak by its self. Normal is a perspective, I just did not see that perspective defined in the article, and being your site covers many species around the world, it has some conflict.


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## rocky1 (Aug 11, 2019)

> Disagree. "here" throughout means "in this article".



While I do understand your perspective Paul, "this article" is on the Internet. Moot point honestly, pickin at you on that one. 

Not a problem on the review; any time. Used to do it all the time for fun, on Web Design forums, mostly to learn what to look for in my own work, in other webmasters errors. Did it for 2 years grading papers as well.


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## phinds (Aug 11, 2019)

Mr. Peet said:


> Disagree. Need an adjective to separate non-live oak from live oaks, did not like "non-live" so settled on "normal". Meaning seems clear in context.
> 
> Yes, normal could fit from a northern hemisphere perspective. I believe Mexico has 80-100 species of oak by its self. Normal is a perspective, I just did not see that perspective defined in the article, and being your site covers many species around the world, it has some conflict.


Don't really get your point. So Mexico has a lot of oaks? So what? I assume some of them are "normal" red and white oaks and some are live oaks. Are you saying that Mexico has no live oaks? What about Quercus crassifolia (Mexican live oak)?


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## phinds (Aug 11, 2019)

Mark stopped by this afternoon and made a good suggestion, which is that I use "ring porous" instead of "normal". What I'm going to do is use ring porous to parenthetically clarify the "normal". So "normal" becomes "normal (ring porous)"

Reactions: Like 1


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