"Curly" white oak?

[woodhick]

Ok, I have seen curly quartersawn white oak and would love to have some for furniture projects.   Is there any way to tell if a white oak is curly before I cut it down?  I don't want to cut every white oak on the place trying to find this elusive board.  I have asked and read about being able to tell curly in maple before and heard all kinds of theories.  Do they apply to white oak? Thanks.

[SwampDonkey]

Look for horizontal wrinkles in the bark near the stump. That's the best I can say without injuring the bark to see the sapwood.  : I don't know how common it is in oak, or if it's more prominent in some areas than other. Birdseye seems to work that way as far as occurrences. I can go to a stand of sugar 'rock' maple today and place my hand on several birdseye trees, if the forest company hasn't knocked them down by now.  : Some of these hardwood mills up here that are Crown Lincensees have it great, they see all kinds of figure and the royalties are the same as if it were any other log tree. I've been in one mill where they stack all the figured wood to the side, as anyone would of course.  ;D There is a lot of curl in northern white cedar stump wood as well. Since the bark is very thin, it is easy to find. Giving Jeff ideas.  ;D Might find some in any blow down without butchering a living one.  ;)

[Daren]

I have sawn a little curly red and white oak. I did not go looking for them, they just showed up. I cannot even say I would know what to look for, just what I have notice about the ones I have sawn. They were larger trees and they were hour glass shaped for the lack of a better term. The bole was big on both ends, big butt swell, skinny in the middle and got bigger again before it branched. May just be coincidence in my limited experiences, but I have never sawed a straight curly oak butt log. Having said that it made them hard to 1/4 saw the ray flecks were not even they kinda curved with the shape of the tree, if that makes sense. The ray flecks were not consistent through the boards, would come and go in size and were "crooked" on the board.
Someone who has sawed different logs may tell you different. But for me I did not like the curly 1/4 sawn. The curl did not show on the 1/4 like it did flat sawn. The flecks were not as impressive as a straight log. I would rather 1/4 a nice big straight log and flat saw a curly one.

[oakiemac]

I just sawed some beautifull curly red oak, some of it quarter sawn. The logs looked no different then any other oak log. This was actually black oak which many sawyers treat like the plague. I personally like the stuff because you can buy it dirt cheap and it some times yeilds jems.

[MikeH]

  I did not notice these when I sawed them till after a trip through the planner. A lot of the rays jumped around a bit like Daren said but still not to shabby looking. I'll put these on ebay this winter.
   

[Ron Wenrich]

I get curly oak on rare occasions.  My curly white oak tends to be mainly in chestnut oak.  There's not a whole lot of white oak in my area.

I'm sawing debarked logs, so I usually can see something different on the sides of the tree.  I don't know if it is seen in the bark.  I kind of doubt it, since its a heavier barked tree when compared to the maples.  Those I can usually see ahead of time.

I also notice that the curly oak doesn't always go all the way through the log.  A lot of times I'll cut a few boards, then its gone.   

[SwampDonkey]

I have a couple boards in my red oak flooring like Mikes. Quite interesting figure.