1st Post, Completed Tray, and a walnut finish question

[Rob Gieringer]

This is my first post, I co-worker told me about SMC about 2 months ago and I've been visiting here regularly to look at all the great work.

I'm new to woodworking, this is my first spline and inlay work. It's walnut and maple. I made two quick sushi trays to go along with it. Finished with wipe on poly for the big tray and butcher block oil for the two sushi trays. I think the pictures explain the the rest. Critiques definitely welcomed.

tray-1.JPG tray-2.JPG sample1.jpg sample2.jpg

Currently, I'm working on building on building my office furniture, bookcase, bench, and desk. I have the bookcase and bench all cut, milled, and sanding complete. All I need to do is assemble and finish. I'm using walnut for this entire project which I am really excited about. Originally, I could not afford 200 board feet of walnut, but found a local place that has a bargain bin which contains some beautiful walnut, but knocked down in price from sap wood, discoloration, and knots. Some call imperfections, I saw character and affordability.

Attached is a sample of all the boards after the initial milling. My question is, how would you finish it? I did 3 sample test with a walnut stain, a tung oil, and a dark walnut oil. The stain turned out almost as a gray color, the tung oil highlighted everything, and i feel the dark walnut oil did the best of highlighting the wood, but giving it all some comon ground. As of right now, I am planning to use the dark walnut oil and finish with a poly coating. I'm a newb when it comes to finishing as I've never used anything outside of poly and tung oil so any advice is greatly appreciated. You can be specific too, if there's a special brand you like, mention that as well. If you like the walnut oil idea, if there's a product you suggest I go with, I haven't bought anything yet, just borrowed some for my test piece.

Thank You!!!

[Brad Wood]

The trays look great, particularly being that you are new to woodworking. I'm new too, but I seem to be taking the slow track

For your office furniture - Now that I have put some time into learning more about finishing, I've concluded at least two key things...
1. The finish should be dependent upon the use
2. There are a lot of ways to skin a cat

so, while you can narrow down the choices based on use, from there it becomes personal. That personal aspect is dependent upon the type of final look you like, what materials you are experienced with, etc.

So, that said, personally, I'd probably do boiled linseed oil, let it cure, and then varnish.
Your current plan is very close to this - walnut oil and poly. There are a lot of people out there that don't like poly, but if it gives you the final look and feel that you like, then you should run with it. Being that the pieces will be "used" and not set on a shelf to be "viewed" only, I think you are on the right track with going with a varnish of some sort.
There are probably people here that might mention a lacquer. I don't have experience with lacquer, and I understand it is best sprayed, so maybe this is an option for you if you have a sprayer (I don't).

p.s. boiled linseed oil is cheaper than tung oil and it cures faster. I've read it takes up to a month for the tung oil to cure fully before doing the film coat.

edit: p.s. if you look at this thread, you can see what BLO and Varnish look like on walnut http://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=123339

[RickT Harding]

I've done a couple of walnut projects and I love the finish:

3 coats of BLO. Smother it and wipe it clean. Let it sit for a day between coats.

2 coats of wax free shellac. This helps seal in the BLO and starts to give me something to do some find sanding. I sand with 400grit between coats of shellac to get the dust/etc out.

3-5 coats of wiped on Arm-R-Seal. Again, I do a light sand with 400grit between coats to smooth out each. I love the purple sanding pad material for this. Norton I think? (NOPE: 3M sanding pad) Each of these takes about 7/8 hours between coats.

After all this is done I do a light paste wax/0000 steel wool buffing

Sample of this is over at my entertainment center project:
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=123108

[Sam Layton]

Hi Rob, welcome to the Creek. Your tray looks outstanding. Walnut and maple are made for each other.

Make sure you post photo's of your desk. I am sorry I can't help on the finish.

Sam

[John Thompson]

First... welcome Rob! From the looks of that heavy machinery... the advanced saw-horses and the sheer size of the shop itself, it is hard to imagine that you are new to WW'ing unless that is rented or shared shop space.

Your trays look great and the joinery is very good. I also like the look of the walnut and maple even though I have never used it. Back in the days I could get walnut at reasonable price I generally did all walnut. I had a friend father that took over 4000 linear feet off his property and sold it to me at practically nothing but that was at least 20 years ago.

I agree with the poster that the finish look is personal and you will have to decide after experimenting with several methods on scrap. And the top-coat can reflect the amount of abuse the desk.. etc. will take. I won't hesitate to use poly if the piece is subjected to water or heavy abrasion but not the way I used it years ago.

A simple coat of wiped on cut 70%-30% with naptha and then 2-3 coats cut 50%-50% with extremely light sanding with 500 grit to take off the few nibs that "wiping" will leave. Then I add a coat of Liberon wax in a rub-out after I allow the finish to cure for at least a week and preferably two.

So.. your walnut oil and varnish may be just what you want in an office situation where abuse always lurks just around the corner. BTW.. basically poly is a form of varnish with basically the same properties so....

I wish I could say I had an equipped shop that large when I got started but... reality is I didn't but it all worked out in the wash over the years so not complaining.

[John Keeton]

Rob, welcome to the creek and that is some fine work on the tray. And, for being new to woodworking that is one heck of a shop! Very well equipped and huge!!

I second the application of BLO, however I have not seen a great deal of benefit beyond one application. The main impact of BLO for me is the depth of color and tone. I don't perceive it as part of the finish - though there are some that do. In fact, it could become a finish on it's own, but lacks some attributes that would be helpful in your situation.

Other than that, I have used Rick's method with success, and I have also done the same without the shellac - both turned out well. I will comment that Rick ended up with a beautiful finish on his piece, and that would attest to a good finishing schedule.

And, different than most, wipe on poly is not offensive to me. For years it was all I used. Even with that, I would use a generous application of BLO to start.

There are some finishing gurus on SMC and hopefully they will chime in here with some better thoughts.

[Rob Gieringer]

Thanks so much for the advice so far, it's been very helpful. I was originally wanting to use BLO since it is such a popular finish in the SMC threads, but with my walnut having streaks of sap (or some pieces mostly sap) and others with discoloration, I thought a medium or dark walnut oil might be my best bet. I don't want to totally cover up all imperfections, but looking for a way to have a better overall blend while still letting the wood show itself. And then looking to add some coat of varnish to protect it. Does this make sense?

Yes, the shop in these pictures is amazing, but it is not mine. I graduated college about 2 years ago, bought a house, and decided I would rather build some of the furniture rather than buy it all. Without any experience (I had held a hammer a couple times ), I took a couple wood working classes at a local arts center which really got me into it.

Not having the money and space to get all the tools I would like to have, I went looking for a place I could rent to work. I found signing up for a class at a local college (UALR) was my best bet as I immediately fell in love with the shop. I have 7 weeks to finish all this up, so i'll be there a lot!

[John Keeton]

Rob, I agree with trying to mask some of the sapwood, so your method should work fine.

BTW, your shop situation reminds me of a time many years ago when I was really in to raquetball, but there were no local courts. Some friends and I signed up for the raquetball adult ed course at a nearby college for 4 semesters until they finally decided we had "learned" enough about the sport and needed to move on!

[Rob Gieringer]

That's too funny, John! You were exactly in the same boat as I'm in and I now again get a "college student discount" at the movies

[Tracy White]

I recently built a Hal Taylor Maloof-inspired office chair. Hal Taylor recommended the Deft Oil Danish Oil. This was the first time I had used it. It was an easy finish to use and the results look very good. I put photos of my oak chair on Sawmill Creek. You can see pictures of walanut rocking chairs on Hal Taylor's website. I used to use Deft brand polyurethane to brush on with a foam brush. Recently I have been using water-based polyurethane with a HVLP sprayer. I know some people don't like polyurethane finishes but for furniture that is going to be heavily used I think it is a good choice.