Why Quarter-Sawn White Oak
There are two ways to cut a log into planks. One is fast: run it straight through the saw in parallel passes. The other takes longer, but produces wood that behaves better, looks better, and lasts longer. That second method is quarter-sawing, and it's why the Fonds side table is built the way it is.
How it works
Plain-sawing — the common method — slices the log lengthwise into parallel boards. Because the growth rings cross each board at varying angles, the wood expands and contracts across its width as humidity changes. Over time it can cup, bow, or check.
Quarter-sawing starts by splitting the log into quarters, then cutting each quarter so the saw passes roughly perpendicular to the growth rings. The result is a board where the rings run vertically through its thickness. It expands in thickness rather than width, stays flat, resists cupping, and takes finish evenly.
In white oak, quarter-sawing also exposes the medullary rays — cells that run radially through the tree. On the face of the board they appear as a silvery, almost iridescent figure that shifts with the light. It isn't a pattern applied to the wood. It's the biology of the tree made visible.
Why Stickley used it
Around 1900, Gustav Stickley began producing Craftsman furniture in Eastwood, New York, working inside the American Arts and Crafts movement — a reaction against Victorian ornament and concealed construction. He used quarter-sawn white oak almost exclusively.
The choice was practical. It was the most honest material available: stable, durable, and impossible to fake, though some other manufacturers would try. Its hardness resisted the kind of wear that reveals cheap construction. And its color — warm amber early, deepening to richer brown over decades — rewarded use.
Why we use it
The Fonds side table is made from solid quarter-sawn white oak for the same reasons. The wood is honest, it is stable, and it develops character over time rather than degrading.
The grain is visible on every panel — top, leg panels, lower shelf. The medullary ray figure is unmistakable. We finish the wood with a transparent dye stain, hand-rubbed, so you can feel the grain through the surface.
There's a practical reason too. The table's structure relies on dado joints and bolts — joinery that depends on wood that won't move with the seasons. Quarter-sawn white oak stays dimensionally stable as humidity changes, which keeps the joints tight over decades. And if a component is ever damaged, the same construction allows the table to come apart cleanly for repair.
And like Stickley's pieces, it will look better with time. As the wood darkens, the ray figure doesn't fade — it becomes more legible.
The table you sign today won't look the same in twenty years. What you're dating is a beginning.