Natural oak stair : strange marks

[Steve Campbell]

Hi folks, wondering if anyone has seen this before. New staircase. They are coming to inspect next week but wondered if any carpenters or others have seen this.

Picture 1 is straight on in natural light. Marks are slightly visible but hard to spot.


Picture 2 from an angle with LED hallway lighting on. The artificial light really emphasises the marks. It looks worse at night with no natural light.


Picture 3 = close up.


The wood is natural oak. It feels perfectly smooth but the light marks reflect under artificial light showing these squiggles. There are a couple of other newell posts also show the same effect but not as noticeable.

Thoughts ?

[wolfracesonic]

Medullary rays, a feature of quartersawn oak, which you usually have to pay a premium to get.

ETA If you ever watch footage of the House of Commons, or Lords, the panelling in there features it heavily.

Edited by wolfracesonic on Sunday 21st April 10:30

[DonkeyApple]

Medullary rays Was going to be my first thought but they're usually more linear like the tiger striping. I've not seen them in this sort of more random and often circular fashion. The randomness and weaving nature makes them look like wood worm tracks and the wood wasn't planed quite deep enough. I think my guess would be medullary rays but the ones you pay less for not more for.

[wolfracesonic]

They do seem to be a bit of a half hearted effort on the trees part. Probably French oak trees , coming over here and not making very good newel posts…

[dhutch]

Yeah, its an oak thing.

[Steve Campbell]

Thanks folks. Medullary rays it is. They can provide a polisher / polish that calms them down so they aren't so prominent. All good. I quite like them but SWMBO isn't so keen in the specific areas they show.

....and I've learnt something new. Never heard of them before !

Thanks Power of PH !

[Simpo Two]

If I'd built that staircase I'd have turned the post round so they don't show - but builders don't work to that level of finesse...!

[eliot]

suspect it wont look fine once you have some oil on it