Mike, about 20 years ago I was taking a woodworking course in college, and
bought some old barnwood oak. when we planed it down it was some of the
prettiest oak I've seen. There were some nail holes in it, but they had turned
black around the hole and ended up just looking like pin knots or something. I
ended up building a dartboard cabinet and it turned out very pretty. I'll see
if I can find any pictures and attach.
Good luck,
Earl Zei
Found the pics! The rampant lion I traced off of a lowenbrau poster, glued to
some 3/4 pine from k-mart, cut shape out with a coping saw, and
"3dimensionalized" it with a cheapo woodcarving set.) I was pretty pleased with
myself!
Anyway, if you blow up the pics you can see the grain pretty well- I'm pretty
sure I used toungue oil and no stain- the darkness in the grain was just there
from the age (the guy that was tearing down the barn figured it was around for
at least 60 years.