question about oak

Sounds like mold to me or Ive finding little black dots on some of my wood looks like spider eggs. Got Pictures?

-- Scott JoBurg MI

ill get some, but seemed to happen after i wiped it with a wet rag to show a freind of mine what the color will look like when finished

The black is created from the minerals in the water reacting with the tannin in the oak. If you use any water for any reason with the oak you should use distilled water, it will not cause this reaction. That is why when you use water soluble dye they tell you to use distilled water. Or when you use water to raise the grain to sand you use distilled water.

-- Max "Desperado", Salt Lake City, UT

is the wood ruined or is there something i can do to take care of it

You can try to use a cabinet card scraper to shave off that area, if it isn’t too deep this will take it off. If it is not a piece of the project as yet you could also run it through a thickness planner if you can afford it to be thinner. I would try the scraper first.

-- Max "Desperado", Salt Lake City, UT

good then i wasnt totally off base, thats what im going to do thanks

Let us know how it turns out…

-- Max "Desperado", Salt Lake City, UT

Oxalic acid works great. It’s sold at Rockler in powder form. It’s cheap. It looks like a fine salt. Mix it with water into a paste, put it on the oak and the black stain disappears pretty quickly.
As alluded to previously, it’s not mold. It’s a reaction to moisture and minerals.

By the way—you don’t want to use steel wool on oak for the same reasons—little black dots.

-- Go STARS!

wet steel [ pipe clamps and glue ] will cause black spots on oak.

-- jerryw-wva.