Soak

Soak is a moderately discolored area, dirty mustard yellow, bleached brown, or dull gray. The wood looks dull, dead, rough, spongy, and often water soaked or weathered. Although it is considered by some as decay, soak is not accompanied by a softening of the fibers; in fact, they are sometimes embrittled. It is most common in overcup and water oak on poor sites.

Significance: Ordinarily, no log-scale deduction is made for soak.

In veneer and factory logs, soak is regarded as equal in effect to stain or scattered pockets of early stage rot where the wood is beginning to stain, soften, and weaken. Where it is more severe and further advanced than this, soak becomes a veneer and factory log defect.

In construction logs, soak is ignored as a log grade defect.

In standing trees, soak is evaluated by the methods described for ring shake, heart checks, windshake, ray shake, and spider heart.



	Wood Education Resource Center