Is this wood pine or oak.

[redabby]

Hi,
I live in a early Victorian cottage and plan to sand the boards in my living room area then have them filled . The boards are very wide 9.1/2 inch and dark at the moment but wont know what they will look like until they are sanded. We are unsure of the type of wood i.e. pine which i have sanded in the past or oak. One of the pics is of the untreated underside of the boards. Can anybody help.
Thanks in advance.

 

[just pumps]

Pine is a soft wood where as oak is a hard wood

 

[Nige F]

I would say pine stained dark over the years. Nice width and grain to them

 

[redabby]

The untreated underside of the board is quite dark you can mark it with the tip of a pen if you push quite hard but where the upper part is rock hard which is why we thought it might be oak.
The men who are filling the gaps thought they may be oak because they hadn't seen boards like it, and are going to purchase oak boards for replacing any damaged boards witch is why I'm keen to make sure they get the correct boards.

 

[big-all]

can you see the end grain or the side grain or take a picture off any knots on the dark board ??
visually its very oak like but in an odd place

 

[Deleted member 174758]

In the early Victorian period an "artisan dwelling" is highly unlikely to have had oak flooring, partly because of expense and partly because of shortages in oak resulting from over cutting in the preceding 100 years due to the continental wars. Pine started to come into the UK from both Russia and North America in ever increasing quantities after 1800, so if it isn't pine it might well be chestnut, which was commonly substituted for oak in furniture and some housing , and which looks like oak, although somewhat softer when originally sawn. Are the undersides of the boards rough sawn (which might be expected up until the 1860s) or smooth? If smooth it might indicate that the boards have been replaced at some time

 

[redabby]

Thank you it's very interesting. I've taken a couple of other snaps witch show the side, underside and knots, but i hadn't thought of chestnut . I live near a dockyard so the wood could have come from anywhere even ship timbers.

 

[jacko555]

Not an expert but looks like pine to me.

You also have woodworm holes in your pics. Not to be unexpected with the old wood, I've a few holes in mine. Just fyi

 

[redabby]

Thanks everyone. I don't think they are oak so will let the floor men know, I think they are probably pine maybe chestnut. What threw us is the darkish red colour on the underside and the treated boards are so dark but obviously someone has coloured them in the past. I don't care what they are in the end because they do have a nice grain and width and will look lovely when finished. But to be on the safe side for replacement boards I am taking a piece to show a man who deals with reclaimed wood to see what he thinks. On a side note my floormen are going to ' cork ' the gaps as some are quite large and they think too large for wood shavings.

 

[jacko555]

When eventually strip the stairs / landing, I'll use reclaimed pine slithers for the gaps. You can get a variety of sizes, glue them in and plane/ sand down.

 

[Deleted member 174758]

What threw us is the darkish red colour on the underside and the treated boards are so dark but obviously someone has coloured them in the past.

Oak doesn't tend toward red, but some pines, such as pitch pine and parana pine can. Your photographs are more orange than red to my eyes, which puts me in mind of certain varnishes. And as you say, though, they could have been painted or varnished in the past (more likely than staining which is a modern approach for flooring)

But to be on the safe side for replacement boards I am taking a piece to show a man who deals with reclaimed wood to see what he thinks.

Probably a good idea. On a tiny screen where the grain isn't wonderfully clear and colour rendition may be wrong it is often difficult to gauge what you are looking at. Oak is distinguished by an open pore structure which seems to be missing in your examples, though

On a side note my floormen are going to ' cork ' the gaps as some are quite large and they think too large for wood shavings.

The word is "caulk". One technique is to pack a caulk saver (closed cell foam piping) into the bigger gaps, then fill the top with caulk to produce an acceptable result.

As an aside people often think they have oak beams or oak flooring, but the reality is that other than high status/value housing or commercial premises (such as banks) and a very limited number of estate houses where locally cut timber was a available, oak would not have been used much in domestic housing from at least 1750 (by which time import of pine was going full blast and the canals were opening up) simply on grounds of cost

 

[redabby]

Thanks again I don't mind them being a pine because it will keep costs down and give me plenty of options stain or varnish.

 

[redabby]

Again thanks for all your replies, the reclaimed wood man says they are defiantly pine he even has some just like them at the moment from a house renovation just down the road . I've told my chaps and looking forward to having a lovely wood floor.