[Neil K Walk]

All talk of finishing aside: oak is a hard wood to work with if you're new to woodworking. I tried making cam clamps out of red oak and it really made my little bandsaw strain - the wood was literally burning as the blade was cutting through it. Obviously I needed a better blade. I can only assume that I'd have to be diligent about keeping my planes sharp and use a lot of sandpaper and elbow grease to work with it as well. As for pore filling, I'd assume that Z Poxy resin might work great with it. Do a search on Youtube for "Todd Stock pore filling". For his demonstration he was working with maple which is also a very dense wood.