Red Oak? Like for realz?

[AudioTaper]

They had cherry at my HD for a very short time.

I remember seeing Cherry many years ago. Luckily for me (if I ever have time to attempt building something) there's a Rockler near me. They have downsized a lot of their exotic woods in recent years, but still have Purpleheart and varieties of Walnut, Ash, and maple.

 

[Picton]

I've worked with red oak, and I love it; its only drawback is that it's hard to get a really glossy finish out of it, but that's not a problem for me. The niftiest thing I did with it was resawing some old tongue-and-groove flooring to bend into ukulele sides; I was surprised the oak bent so well. People tell you to watch for tannins during bending, but I had no problems. It's holding up just fine a decade later. Same with oak necks I've made. The one thing I've never done with it is use it for a fretboard, but I probably would.

Being cheap and plentiful, oak is especially good for prototyping. In fairness, I suspect part of the reason I enkjoy oak is because I use hand tools almost exclusively. My understanding is that it can be splintery.

 

[JIO]

I've seen far too much visually displeasurable oak furniture over the years to want to use it for a bass. A bias I admit to but also know there are much better woods out there to choose from.

 

[Jisch]

I think cherry, walnut and oak would be a pretty good combination. That might be my next one.

 

[FunkyFlashFive]

I'm happy to use red oak for furniture, and I'm just about finished with a new workbench made of it except for the maple top i picked up cheap, but a lot of that is because it's the most plentiful wood in the dry stacks off my family's hobby sawmill so to me it's free. Even so, I'm inclined to use the other wood in the woods for guitars, and it's only 2 years till this winter's bounty of walnut and ash is dry and ready to be used!