It looks like a oak to me, can't tell white or red.

The pieces that sort of glow- is the quarter sawn?

Red oak with an oil based finish, which is the amber tint.

So I got some oak and put on several coats of oil based poly, and it was still not the orangey- tint I need. Perhaps I should try a little shellac?

I would agree with red oak, oiled or something.

Casey

There is definitely poly on it. I had oil floors before in another house and they are very different. I don't know if the oil poly just ambered it through the years. But to match it I need to add something besides oil poly. The question is what?

It looks plain sawn to me.

Then when you have the color right, top with clear poly.

That board in the middle is quarter sawn. All those vertical stripes are the tree rings which are perpendicular to the face of the board when quarter sawing. A few boards come out like that as the sawmill works its way through the center of the log, even if they're not trying to quarter saw. The surface is shinier because of the orientation of the wood grain. All the other boards in the pics are flat sawn. Those flecks going across are 'rays' that show up in quartersawn oak.

Thanks for your comments. I've been really wanting to make sure I got pieces in my new floors that have those rays because it's so pretty. Thanks again.

I had the crew who laid all the oak floors in our development add on to our home. The floors all look like your pictures above. I wouldn't call them orange. All of our floors only have poly on them. When they are first covered, they are slightly whiter and with six months time, they become slightly more orange.

We also had these guys sand down a couple warn areas and recover them. They did look different for a few months, but I wouldn't know where they refinished 18 months later if I actually didn't know where they refinished.

What chas045 said is correct. The boards don't match now so why monkey around trying to "match",it's all going to look the same after a few months if it's coated with oil poly. If you color new wood then coat with non-ambering water clear finish,age will cause a mis-match.

A guy at the local lumber wholesaler told me many years ago, there are 35 different color grades of red oak. (Of course "red oak" itself is simply a bunch of related species). Why you have a difference is you just have a mish-mash of those species. In addition, the same species grown in, say, Pennsylvania will not look like the same grown in Arkansas, Georgia, or Virginia due to different soil conditions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Quercus_species

Well said bob,and if every board matched it would be less attractive anyhow. People that insist on everything "matching" should paint.

All plain sawn oak wouldn't match with what I have- I will make sure I get some quarter sawn mixed in. It's those boards I love the most in my floor. So it seems like most people here think just straight poly ought to give me the orangey look? I can't seem to capture it on camera. I've seen the guy in This old house put shellac on the floor when repairing it and it gave an orange- look.

I think we were all saying, yes; just poly; I was. However, I believe that you could shellac a sanded floor for an oranger color, but that would not match your pics.