My trip to Tule Peak Lumber the other day netted me some really nice chunks of wood to experiment with. Rob the owner of Tule Peak, gave us some nice hefty pieces of black oak.  I took some rough sawn and planed it down, joined the edges, and sanded the wood from 120, 220, 400, 800, then 2000 abralon and squirted a coat of BLO.  This is what came of it.

Click on the images to see the full size pic.

The pile of wood Rob gave me to play with

Black Oak planes well
 

Sanded and ready to finish
 

Coat of BLO, the figure is popping now!
 

Here you see Black Oak Rough in the background,
 

and the finished piece in the foreground.

Rough in the foreground and finish in the back.
 

The last pic is a slab cut 4/4 of Coastal Live Oak, this
 

is much redder and more wild in grain. Tomorrow I will

see what this stuff looks like with a good coat of BLO.

The best part of this? It's all 5 bucks a board foot!

John that has some really nice looking grain running in it. Looks like it could make an interesting chair. The way it is running it almost looks like tiger grain in the picture.

Looks like you have a great find there and it is close enough you can go, look and pick out what you want.

How was his walnut? Anything in that pile that look good for a chair?