Riven Oak and the Joiner's Trade

The joiner

From the first English settlements in New England (about 1620-1630) to the late 17th century, much furniture was made by joiners: frame-and-panel chests, cupboards, wainscot chairs, joint stools, and tables, held together with mortise and tenon joints ¹. Peter Follansbee, who worked as a joiner at a living history museum for 20 years, jokes that a book on all the joints he uses would be short: the first page the mortise and tenon, the second a rabbet fastened with nails ¹.

Their tool kits were modest. A 1633 Plymouth inventory lists axes, a hatchet, handsaws, augers, chisels and gouges, a holdfast, jointer, fore, and smoothing planes, a half-round plane, and an adze ¹.

Why rive

In New England, joiners usually rived (split) their oak from green logs rather than sawing it ¹. Splitting follows the wood’s structure:

1. Split the log in half, then quarters, with wedges and a maul.
2. Split each quarter along the rays, radially, into wedge-shaped bolts.
3. Remove the bark and pith edges and split the bolts into rough boards and squares with a froe.
4. Hew and plane them to size.

Riven boards come out with their faces on the radial plane, the most dimensionally stable surface there is ¹. They shrink about half as much across their width as flatsawn boards, and the split follows the fibers, so parts are strong and straight-grained. On white and red oak the faces show the broad silver ray fleck of quartersawn stock.

Joint stools and joined chests start in the woodlot with green oak and end with pigment-and-linseed paint ². See Riving with Froe and Wedges in Green Woodworking for the basic technique.

Choosing a log

• Straight and clear: a straight trunk with no twist, few knots, and no wounds. The log should split cleanly; test with a wedge before committing.
• Fresh: green oak splits and works far more easily. Keep logs shaded and off the ground, or seal the ends, until you work them.
• Growth rate: oak is ring-porous. Fast-grown oak has more dense latewood and is harder and stronger; slow-grown oak, with narrow rings, is lighter, milder, and easier to plane and carve, which is why slow-grown oak was prized for panels.
• White or red: Follansbee works both ¹. White oak resists rot; red oak splits easily and works well indoors.

Working green, then dry

Joiners worked parts at different moisture levels on purpose: stiles and rails shaped while fairly fresh, tenons and pins drier so they don’t shrink loose in the joint, and panels thinned at their edges so they float in grooves. The joint stool’s drawbored joints need no glue because the pins hold them ².

What came next

By the late 17th century, joiners’ riven oak work was giving way to cabinetmakers’ work in sawn boards: maple, pine, and later mahogany, assembled with dovetails and glue ¹. The frame and panel never went away, though; it reappears in Arts and Crafts furniture and every paneled door ¹.

Try it

Get a short, straight green oak log, 3-4 ft long and 12 in. or more across, from a tree service or sawmill. Quarter it with wedges, rive one quarter into radial bolts, and froe out a few rough squares. Note how the split follows the rays, and save the best pieces for the joint stool.

What to take from this

17th-century New England joiners built frame-and-panel furniture with mortise and tenon joints from oak rived along the rays, giving stable, strong radial faces. Choose a straight, clear, fresh log; slow-grown oak is milder to work, fast-grown is stronger. By the late 17th century, cabinetmakers working sawn boards with dovetails replaced most joiners’ work.