I know, I know, hard to believe isn't it? In the past, many people have complained about norm's abuse of stain and poly. I've been mostly ambivalent about the subject up until now.
The latest NYW in the tivo was this really cool corner table where half of the table was a drop-leaf. But what was really striking was the wood choice. The first part of the show talked about how this white oak was pulled out of a civil war era dam on a river in virgina iirc. After resawing, the *white oak* looked like a charcoal color, almost silvery, on the television. He complained about being able to get enough of the wood for the two projects. And the color wasn't exactly uniform across the table top. But still, the color was awesome.
Can anyone guess what he did? He stained it with dark walnut stain to "even out the color". This thing was screaming for just a clear finish. Now, I agree that the top had been glued up with boards that were unfortunately a different color. But couldn't he have done something else? Couldn't he have selected a different board? Put the light wood in the back or something? He glued up five of the boards to be able to make the table legs, and there was a aweful lot of waste. Couldn't he have done the first project in some other wood, saving the good wood for the second one he does for the camera? Anything?
brian