Any woodworkers ever fool with live oak wood?

If you don’t have access to a kiln-it’ll take a while for it to dry out to be stable. Set the boards stacked flat with stickers in between to allow air to flow around the wood. Find something else to work with for the foreseeable future.

Live oak especially yard trees have a lot of tension in them (aka reaction wood) that make them highly susceptible to binding and kickback even with a riving knife. Hell, even turners won't usually bother with it and they get giddy when they see almost any hardwood felled. It isn't really pretty or interesting just kinda meh.

If you do use it you don't want to cut cookies (round shapes where the rings go in a circle) or it will just split horribly. You want to flatsaw, riftsawn or quartersaw it ( the latter preferable if you have the girth needed) and avoid the pith. But if you want live edge you will need to flatsaw it otherwise you will be mixing flatsawn and quartersawn grain. Flatsawn is more likely to cup, twist or bow so you should make allowances in your rough cut thickness but keep in mind you will need a planer, wide belt sander, decent drum sander or at minimum a belt sander and some level of skill with it. This assumes you don't want to use planes to flatten the stock. When you stack it to airdry make sure you block and sticker it. Weight the cover you put over it but do NOT use anything clear or transparent it will be better to use ratchet straps than weight though. Figure 6 months to air dry per inch of thickness, maybe more like 9 months if you are in SELA. With the small amount you want to save, you can bring it inside after 2-3 months outside since winter will be over and you shouldn't have any really low RH, 40+% should be fine after a few months outside.

Bottom line I have machines large enough to mill up to 50" slabs without resorting to a router planing sled and I wouldn't even think of spending the time and effort to save a few bdft of live oak unless it had sentimental value like grandpa planted the tree the day he and grandma got hitched. I would just go buy some nice kiln-dried maple, or walnut and do an end grain cutting board. If you want to up the ante you can do one of a million cool patterns. In the end, your live edge live oak cutting board will probably look meh no matter how much effort you put in and is simply not going to last. My object is not to discourage you but if you spend a few bucks on proper wood you have a chance at producing a functional cutting board that will last for decades with less work and not a lot more money.




BTW you really don't want a live edge cuttingboard unless it is solely decoration.

Obtuse-that's great info you posted.
Glock-that is fantastic work. Just looks great Congrats.