Using a lumber to look like White Oak

[andrew whicker]

If you want the final color to be the same as white oak then you will be very limited in options. I can't think of anything besides white ash, as Jim mentioned. It has a sort of similar grain and pore structure, and it's lighter so it could be dyed/stained to emulate WO. Red oak is too pink, so you likely would have to bleach it first, also as Jim said. After all that work, you might better have just used WO to begin with.

How much is your time worth?


John

Thanks much (and Jim). Yeah, I would be adding the cost to the job and I think it ultimately would be more expensive to the customer than just using white oak. It's for a fairly straight forward railing. The cost of the white oak isn't much compared to the total cost.