There's a current thread about Brown Oak in the projects forum. I posted some photos there of boards in a curious interim stage on the way to becoming Brown Oak, a rare timber called Tiger Oak. This is when the fungus has invaded the tree, but the tree was felled before the tree has turned completely brown, which permanently arrests the process at this stage.
I said on that thread that I'd post some snaps here of a finished article made from this timber. This is one of a pair of side tables I made from some large stocks of Tiger Oak that I was lucky enough to find.
It was an interesting and surprisingly challenging project to make. The curved stretchers need a halving joint on a curve and also need to be morticed and tenoned into a narrow chamfer on the inside of the splayed legs, so there's plenty of enjoyably complicated joinery involving angles and curves that all needs to be done with real precision to ensure tight glue lines. The top has a very narrow 1mm inlaid line of Sycamore stringing, and because the top is solid timber the only way to stop it popping out with seasonal movement is to use cross grain inlay on the cross grain sides. Cutting and fitting 1mm cross grained stringing accurately was another satisfying exercise.
Having sunk so much effort into these it only made sense to maintain the same build quality standards even on the less visible sections. So the top is secured with elegantly shaped buttons as a nice little touch, and there are corner blocks added which are tightly scribed into the angles of the splayed angle of the legs. Incidentally, these are all made from "normal Oak" so you can clearly see the colour difference between normal and Tiger/Brown Oak
It was a surprising amount of work but it was well worth it because off the back of these I'm close to securing a commission for a substantial desk and chair in Tiger Oak which will be a good three months work. As a small independent maker it's difficult to compete, but by using these kinds of unique and rare woods it's possible to carve out a point of difference that clients appreciate and, more importantly, are willing to pay for!