On Fri, 29 Jun 2007 04:01:45 GMT, "Toller" wrote:

Interesting that everyone hates it.
I have only done three pieces of oak (one red and two white), but they cut
easily with no tear out at all. Maybe I should quit while I am ahead.

I've done three oak pieces as well. One was fine, but it was just a
simple replacement chair leg turned from a dry piece of timber, but
the other two were a waste of my time.

*Cutting* the oak was no problem in the two bad cases- in the first
attempt, a turned a bowl from a burl cap that looked simply
wonderful... for about two weeks. After that, it slowly warped into a
wooden analog of the elephant man.

The second was from a peice of green oak that I began to turn a hollow
form from. Not only was it miserably boring to look at, grain-wise,
but it developed a huge crack about halfway through the hollowing
process.

Could be a personal failing on my part, but I just don't consider the
stuff worth turning. Come to think of it, I'm not a huge fan of using
it for flatwork either- unless I'm using quartersawn white oak with
nice ray flecks, and I can rarely afford that stuff!