Using sapwood offcuts

JoeSheffer · 11 May 2020

Have a load of offcuts from an old project, all quite substantial bits of English Oak. I've always put sapwood on the log burner, but looking at it today i thought it might make a nice workshop stool or something similar? Is there any reason not to do this? It's been sitting in the workshop for a year or so now, and it was very dry when it came into the workshop the first time round.

What do you guys think?

Mike Jordan · 12 May 2020

I also send oak sapwood to the burner, it's appearance has no place in a finished product.
Appart from its appearance though it's working qualities are identical to heartwood, it cuts, planes etc in the same way and appears to be identical in strength.
Some time back a supplier sent some square edged material with a lot of sapwood in it,he then tried to insist that sapwood was not a defect ( the company is now an ex supplier)
There seems to be a tendency to include more sapwood in square edged oak which I think should be resisted. It's expensive and I don't want to buy rubbish, that said I'm sure that it will be adequate for a workshop stool, the disadvantage is that it implies that it's saleable stuff rather than firewood!

woodbloke66 · 12 May 2020

Same as Mike above; I don't use sapwood for anything. I'd get rid of it by burning or taking to the tip - Rob

AndyT · 12 May 2020

Ten years back I made an Adirondack chair for the garden, using some nice air dried oak. Wanting to be economical and not knowing any better, I included sapwood on some of the chair components. It looked the same, and was slightly easier to cut.

Last time I refreshed the finish, about three years ago, the sapwood bits were starting to decay and had got 'punky' so I replaced them. The rest of the chair is fine.

Lesson learned!