Pictured above is a piece of Tiger Oak furniture manufactured by Burrows Bros. Furniture Company, which dates to the early 1900’s.
Burrows Bros. Furniture, which operated in the exact location of Lewis Lumber Products over 100 years ago, produced furniture made of Tiger Oak. Why Tiger Oak? It has beautiful character for sure. Its design is eye pleasing–certainly not cheap even in the day. But what was the ulterior motivation for this kind of furniture?
Rift and Quarter sawn lumber is extremely stable. There were no dry kilns in that day. There were all kinds of different “air drying” conditions and most were really relegated to the nature around them. Air flow was not controlled, impact of the heat from the sun, drying defects were part of the cost of raw material (wrap, twist, checking). To ease that issue, rift and quartered material would not be subject to the warping and twisting as much due to a more stable flow of water. Sawing for it then would allow a mill or owner of the logs to get more out of that log that was useable for furniture. Back in those days there really was no such thing as a “Supply Chain”. Mr. Burrows had a saw mill right here on the property. Today a mill will charge big bucks for quarter or rift sawn oak. The yield to generate that is much lower. But in that day, the costs of raw material were extremely low compared to today and yields were compared to losses when plain sawn lumber was not useable. The kilns were built here in 1914. I am not a historian on that level, but I would imagine that kiln technology was new then. We have come a long way since then. Conditions from the day boards come off the head rig green, to a Predryer or Tshed with mesh to protect from the sun and dirt, to sophisticated sensor kilns, to humidity controlled processing…………………….well, you see the difference. And can probably appreciate the need for costs landing where they do today. The end user demands the quality. And is still willing to pay for it. Or we sure hope so anyway!
Is that the reason for so much quartered and rift antique oak furniture in our country? Just fodder for the mind!
Keith Atherholt