I didn't find overly hard Hubert but again this was the sap wood, and the Streamline I did which didn't include any sap wood may have been a bit harder but nothing like purple heart or some of the other exotic woods, haven't turned any oak for many months so hard to compare.Nice pen! Did you find the apple wood hard. I did one recently and looked up the Janka hardness. I was surprised - Apple is 1,730 lbs. and Red Oak is 1,290 lbs. I have turned several apple blanks and all of them were much harder than I would have thought before turning some.