Questions about Watco Danish Oil

[Lee Schierer]

I am currently making a cherry entertainment center for my son and his family. They would like it to match their other cherry furniture which was made by Ethan Allen. The finish on their other pieces appears to be a penetrating finish with no surface build up. I'm thinking that Watco Danish Oil is a similar finish.

My question is how much does the Watco natural darken the cherry?

Can anyone show me some examples of their work that was finished in Watco Danish Oil?? Close ups of the surface would be appreciated.

Close ups comparing finished wood to raw wood would be priceless.

[Sam Murdoch]

Sorry Lee - don't have any current photos but can say that Watco first applied to cherry will not darken it much more than a wash coat of mineral spirits. It is exposure to natural light and time that will really effect the color of cherry. The more sunlight the darker the cherry. Pretty hard to match old cherry furniture with a few coats of Watco without a coloring process in advance of the oil finish.

[Tom Esh]

I've used it on cherry. Slightly darker initially than BLO (and more uniform), but of course after a few months of cherry's natural darkening anyone would be hard pressed to tell the difference.

[Sam Murdoch]

I've used it on cherry. Slightly darker initially than BLO (and more uniform), but of course after a few months of cherry's natural darkening anyone would be hard pressed to tell the difference.

Yes to this - if you can wait it will all come together naturally.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

I used brushing lacquer for a finish on a cherry table and then set it out in the sunshine every day for about 2 weeks. It darkened noticelby rather rapidly. Mind you, where we live we often go from early July until October without getting any rain, so it was fairly safe for me to set it outside.

[Andrew Joiner]

Google Thos. Moser. They use hot BLO on all there stuff. It's mostly cherry. I think some table tops and contract pieces get a different finish.

I've finished furniture with both hot BLO and Watco natural over the years. They both look about the same. However the Watco fumes bother me when applied and even years later on enclosed areas. No fume problem with BLO.

[Jim Matthews]

I use Waterlox on Cherry.

It has a slightly reddish tint.
I use Watco Danish oil on darker woods, like Walnut.

A word about these finishes - Bob Flexner doesn't think they offer much in the way of water resistance.
Further, the gloss finishes are just the constituent parts. Any semi or matte finish is the straight formulation with stereates added to dull the reflective properties.

These also soften the finish, with makes it even less durable.

I would run a test board, using the basic finishes available and including shellac.
You can prematurely age Cherry with a thinned application of Sodium Hydroxide (Lye) at dilute concentrations
to accelerate the process in darkening cherry.

I would NOT try to match this exactly as the dyed pieces may darken further, when exposed to sunlight.

FYI - I just applied Waterlox to my dining table and the center board which was milled more recently has nearly darkened
to match the outer boards in just over two years - with only Waterlox applied.

[Wade Lippman]

Are you talking about the dark brown color that Ethan Allen calls cherry; despite the fact that cherry never looks like that? I think they use tinted lacquer; yeah, they pretty much paint it.

A few years back someone wanted me to build a drop front desk to exactly match an EA chest of drawers. It took days of experimentation because dyes hide the grain, and stains emphasized it, so nothing matched. I finally settled on a medium dark dye followed by a medium dark stain. It was a perfect match.

Desk1.jpgDesk5.jpg

You can just barely see the EA piece on the right.

If I were to do it today I would give tinted shellac a try.

[Howard Acheson]

The best way to answer your questions would be to prepare a sample board using scrap from your project. If you just want a view of how it will look, wipe on a coat of mineral spirits. This will color the wood very closely to what an oil/varnish would produce. Once the mineral spirits evaporates it will leave the original surface.

Let me suggest that you would be better off to make your own "danish oil". Mixing equal parts of your favorite varnish or poly varnish and boiled linseed oil and mineral spirits will give you a very similar finish. The homemade finish will produce a more durable finish than Watco. Again, try it out on some scrap.