Oak Timber Board (Planed) – 180×28 mm – 3500 mm (11.5 ft.)

Oak Timber Board

A single wide, thick oak board planed smooth and ready to work, this is the piece you reach for when the job calls for real hardwood and nothing else will do. Use it as a bench top, a shelf, a heavy gate rail, a fascia or a bespoke trim, and you get oak’s density and honey grain on show wherever you put it. It measures 180 mm wide and a generous 28 mm thick over a 3500 mm length, and it is stocked in our yard for delivery across Ireland.

Why Oak?

Oak has earned its place indoors and out for a thousand years. It sits in Durability Class 2, naturally resistant to rot, insect attack and fungal decay, and dense at around 720 kg per cubic metre, which is exactly why it wears so well as a working surface. The open grain gives the board a depth and warmth softer timbers cannot match.

One honest quirk comes with all that character. Oak is high in tannin, the preservative behind its weather resistance, and tannin reacts with mild steel and galvanised metal to leave black streaks. Use stainless fixings on any oak you expose to weather. The timber is European oak, Quercus robur.

Installation guidance

How you fix the board is up to the job, but a few things hold true for oak whatever you build. Pre drill before you screw, near the ends especially, because the dense grain will split if a fixing is forced. Use stainless steel outdoors, never galvanised or mild steel, which the tannin marks. Oak moves a little with the seasons, so leave room for that in any run and do not pin it rigidly at both ends. If the board will live outside, seal the end grain, as that is where water gets in first. Some fine surface checking is normal as oak settles and does nothing to its strength.

Finishing & maintenance

Oak gives you two good finishing routes and neither is wrong. Left bare outdoors, it silvers to a soft grey over about twelve months with no effort at all. Kept oiled, it holds the honey brown warmth that makes oak worth specifying in the first place.

Most of our customers oil a board that is on show and let a purely functional one weather. If you oil, use a hardwood oil made for European hardwoods, and avoid film forming varnishes and ordinary stains, which sit on oak’s oily grain and flake. We stock the oils that suit it, so ask us if you are unsure. Either way, a wipe or a soft brush wash with clean water keeps it looking right.