Tiger striped oak?

I have only seen red oak carried at H.Depot here in Virginia area.

Bits&Bits said:

I got this pic from a customer of ours who bought it at Home Depot marked as white oak. Is fiddleback or tiger striping on oak common? I've been around white oak for a while, never seen this...

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This mostly looks like curly white oak. While curly figuring is not typical of plain sawn white oak, fiddleback is even less so. My understanding is that to be considered fiddleback figuring, most curls should be no wider than 1/4" or so apart. I only see one area at the far end that may qualify as that type of figuring on the area shown. What I find more surprising is that H. Depot is selling white oak at all. Here in Virginia, they generally only stock red oak. White oak usually goes to the whiskey barrel makers (coopers) as white oak has tyloses which blocks liquid movement through the xylem. In my opinion, tyloses also makes white oak boards harder to stain evenly with dark pigmented stains. This may be why H. Depot caters to homeowner's (at least in my neck of the woods) with the red oak-- which is largely absent of tyloses and takes a variety of pigmented and dye

Bits&Bits said:

I got this pic from a customer of ours who bought it at Home Depot marked as white oak. Is fiddleback or tiger striping on oak common? I've been around white oak for a while, never seen this...

View attachment 399910

Click to expand...

I dont think this is particularly common. But I believe it is simply curly white oak figuring; not fiddelback. To qualify as "fiddleback" figuring I belive the curls must be no more than 1/4" apart. Only a small portion of this board appears to meet that qualification. What I find more uncommon is H. Depot selling white oak at all. Here in Virginia I generally only see red oak S4S offered (besides Poplar). Red oak works and finishes much easier than white oak (due to tyloses) and caters more to the DIY'er, in my opinion.