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What is Rift & Quarter-Sawn Flooring?

The art of milling quarter-sawing oak, or rift & quartered oak, (sometimes called "tiger" oak) is a superior technique of the past and Delta Plus has re-introduced a time-honored practice of using quarter-sawn flooring for beauty AND stability over flat or plain-sawn flooring (see illustrations below). Rift & Quartered oak flooring is recognized as some of the most stable, beautiful flooring in the world. White oak was the wood of choice for building many of the barns, homes and furniture of our early American history. It's all about how the log is milled/cut. Quarter sawn oak is a perfect choice for radiant heat flooring, too. Radiant heating using quartersawn oak flooring is always a good selection for stability and especially when installing floor boards wider than 4 inches. (Please, call us when choosing hardwood flooring over in-floor radiant heating.)

Rift & Quarter-Sawing	Flat or Plain Sawing

Plain sawn flooring often times can expand, buckle, cup, warp, twist-off the subfloor, even to the point of pushing out walls. But these problems are not present with Rift & Quarter-sawn flooring just by the nature of the milling. . Ninety-nine percent of oak flooring seen in flooring stores is Flat or Plain-sawn flooring. Plain-sawn flooring has replaced Rift & Quartered because it's easier, cheaper, and quicker processing though it produces a lower grade flooring. Today, sawmills cutting logs into boards will produce 80 % plain-sawn, and 20% quarter-sawn. These flooring mills can no longer afford the expense of separating the lumber (so they say). The ONLY WAY manufacturers have found to give plain sawn the stability of Rift & Quartered flooring is to put a veneer of plain sawn oak over plywood (see Engineered Flooring).

Following are examples of our work. One home pictured is in the Historic District and the other home pictured is in the Eagle Ridge subdivision in Prescott, AZ. Please, note that the colors and sheen of the wood were the customer's preference, but are not necessarily the ONLY colors and sheens available (see Our "Signature" Finishes). Being a Master Finisher, we prefer white oak over red oak because of white oak's ability to take stain better, it's harder, it costs less than red oak, and the "tiger" medullary rays or flakes are larger in white oak. It's these "tiger" stripes which gives white oak some of its unique characteristics and beauty. However, red oak is always availble to our customers.