Is this oak and walnut inlay combo working or did I overdo it?

The main thing you need to worry about with that specific layout is **seasonal movement**. Oak and walnut expand at different rates, and when you have alternating strips glued up into a center panel, they act as one solid slab that wants to get wider and narrower as the humidity changes. If you have glued those breadboard ends solid across the entire width of the panel, the wood has nowhere to go. You will likely see the joints start to pull apart or the panel itself might even crack right down the middle once the air dries out and the wood shrinks. Proper breadboard ends are usually joined with a deep tongue and groove where you only glue the center couple of inches. The rest of the joint is held togehter with pins through elongated slots so the center panel can slide back and forth inside the frame. If you didn't account for that sliding action, you might want to reconsider the assembly. It is a common pitfall when you are starting out, but it is better to fix the joinery now than to have the tabletop self-destruct in six months. Regarding the beeswax, it is a pretty soft finish for a tabletop that is going to see actual use. One coat is barely going to seal the grain, but adding three or four layers is just going to leave you with a gummy mess that attracts dust and fingerprints. Wax does not realy build like a film finish; it mostly just fills the microscopic pores. If you love the matte look but want actual protection, look into a **hard-wax oil**. Those products provide much better moisture resistance than plain wax while still keeping that natural wood feel.

If you are sticking with the beeswax you allready have, make sure you are buffing it out completely until it is bone dry before even thinking about a second coat. You shold not feel any tackiness at all. If it feels even slightly soft to the touch, you have put too much on. For a high-contrast piece like walnut and oak, a drying oil followed by a light wax buffing usually gives a much deeper look than wax alone. It will make those walnut strips look a lot richer without the plastic sheen of a heavy polyurethane.

I'm also just starting out and had no idea wood moved that much just from the humidity. If the breadboard ends are alredy glued solid, is there a way to actually save the piece? Like, could I just cut them off and redo the joinery without losing too much length? I was also curious about those hard-wax oils. Is it easy to put on by hand or do you need a buffing machine to make it look right? I really want to keep that matte feel because I’m not a fan of the super shiny plastic look either.

To fix those ends, just grab a circular saw and a straight edge to zip them off. You'll lose maybe an inch of total length, but it’s a lot better than watching the top split later. For the finish, you definitely don't need a buffer for hard-wax oils on a tabletop. A white scotch-brite pad or even just a lint-free rag works fine. Just remember that oak is really thirsty compared to walnut, so the oak strips might suck up more oil and look a bit flatter if you don't saturate them enugh on the first pass. It’s all about that initial soak.

One thing to watch out for with the walnut and oak combo is the sanding dust. Walnut is super dark and it'll get trapped in those big oak pores, making the lighter wood look dirty if you don't stay on top of it. Give it a good vacuuming or use a tack cloth between every single grit. Since you've allready started with the wax, just keep in mind that almost nothing else will stick to it now. If you decide to go the hard-wax oil route later, you're gonna have to sand quite a bit of wood off to get past that wax penetration. For now, just keep the coats thin or it'll never fully cure.