How to Hide Ray Fleck in White Oak

[John Goodin]

I am making newel posts out of rift-sawn white oak. Frequently, ray flecks are exposed after re-sawing or planing. The plan is to stain it a dark color for a more modern look and would like to hide the ray fleck. Is there a process to down play or complete hide it? Thanks.

[Jamie Buxton]

Those long tracks on white oak only show up when the lumber face is almost exactly quartersawn. If you get just a little off quartersawn, you only get the riftsawn look. You can often choose a rift- or quartersawn board out of a stack by looking at the end of the board.

[John Goodin]

Thanks. Unfortunately the boards are painted on the end. It turns out the lumberyard has a fair amount of rift sawn that could be used for quartersawn. I was trying to buy 6/4 and resaw it to save a little money but today when I opened the split board it was full of ray fleck. I might be better off just spending a bit more and going with 4/4.

[Art Mann]

Have you considered red oak? Depending on the tree and drying, red and white oak are indistinguishable but for the ray fleck.

[Jim Becker]

Have you considered red oak? Depending on the tree and drying, red and white oak are indistinguishable but for the ray fleck.

I find these two variants to be visibly different colors, so mixing them might require some extra work during coloration if there is adjacent material. Bare white oak to me has a more "greenish" cast while red oak has a more "pinkish" cast to my eyes.

[John Goodin]

What I am really after is the rift grain pattern of the of the oak. I think it looks great with a dark stain -- more so than closed grain wood options. I think just working with the 4/4 where I can select one good surface may be the best option.

[Steve Schoene]

Use dye not a pigmented stain.

[Scott T Smith]

True rift oak (growth rings 30 - 60 degrees relative to the face) rarely has medullary ray fleck. It’s also not commonly available in wider boards.

Why don’t you just source some true rift?

[John TenEyck]

As Steve said, dyes or dye stains will minimize the ray flecks. Here's a photo or two of a couple of rift sawn WO pieces I made. There were a few ray flecks in a couple of the boards, and I had to use them because I had no extra. My very particular customer had no complaints.

I used SW's BAC Wiping Stain. Dye + stain in one easy to use, non-grain raising, fast drying product. SW has quite a few standard colors, but will custom tint them, too, for no extra charge.

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