Incorporating Sycamore with Oak

Working with wood can at times be difficult because it is a material that has so many variations, not only from tree to tree but also from piece to piece. Each table is made from a slab of a red oak tree, donated by the Grove at Virginia Tech, and each slab is different. As much as the production team would absolutely adore for all of the wooden slabs to be perfect they cannot be. The majority of the slabs that the team has to work with have large splits down the middle. This can be quite troublesome to work with but the production team has a few solutions and know how to handle the large splits.

Luckily most of the splits that the wood slabs have are fairly straight and close to the center. Some are small enough that they able to be fixed with “bow-ties” but others need to be cut out completely. Using the CNC machine, a section from the middle is cut out and a piece of sycamore wood is cut that is made to fit perfectly in that section. The production team creates code for the CNC machine to read how it should cut each piece of wood. This is a very precise way of cutting the wood because these pieces are cut to fit like puzzle pieces.

The insertion of the sycamore wood into the oak also gives the table an appearance that is much more visually appealing and unique by adding that different color and pattern in the wood. The texture of the sycamore is also different when compared to the oak because oak has large and thick rays which sometimes allow for ray fleck to be seen since the slabs have been cut in the transverse direction. The sycamore wood also has a darker and redder color than the oak which stands out yet does not overpower the appearance of the oak. The production team has been doing a great job in working with both species and incorporating them into one product.