I'm building some internal shelves from raw pine, and would like a nice dark walnut finish, without that raw feeling of the wood.
Being a rank amateur, I need some advice....
I was planning on staining the wood, sanding, then applying a furniture wax to give it a better finish. Would this be OK? If not, some other suggestion would be much appreciated.
Many thanks.
BW
The best way to get a walnut look is to start with walnut to begin with.
-- Jack Novak Buffalo, NY - USA (Remove "SPAM" from email address to reply)
Hell, that's too easy ... a dark walnut stain on cherry would be the preferred he-man, wooddorker method..
If you want the look of walnut you should, as Jack said, start with Walnut. Recognising that not everyone can afford to do that, could you perhaps laminate walnut strips to the front of your shelves and do up a walnut face frame for your book case? You'd get, (approximately) the overall look you're going for, without as much of the expense.
Stained pine _always_ looks like stained pine. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, but folks who like the look of real walnut generally avoid trying to mimic it with pine.
Michael
If it is not too late, and you must have a walnut appearance, you may want to reconsider your wood choice.
Poplar, if it is available in your area, and properly selected to minimize the use of the highly colored heartwood, can be finished to resemble walnut to an uncanny degree, and it is much less expensive than walnut.
I wish I had thought of that before I put pine laminate on my walnut.
I was also considering a laminate, but in the same way that stained pine looks like stained pine, doesn't laminate look like laminate? I was hoping for that raw wood feel to it, rather than perfect 100% flat finish - whcih swayed me towards the stain finish rather than laminate... Is the stain/wax finish a bad idea?
Unfortunately I'm fairly limited to using pine at this stage - which is a bummer.
Getting an even stain on soft pine, especially in the darker walnut colors can be extremely difficult and , IMHO, looks like a badly stained piece of pine.
Good luck -
I think when he used the verb"laminate" he meant applying a walnut veneer, which real wood, not plastic laminate.
Bob
I apologise, "laminate" might have been a poor choice of words leading you to think of Formica counter tops or something. Maybe I should have said "glue-up" or "edge-band."
Assuming a 1" thick shelf that's say, 10 inches deep, cut the shelf to
9 inches and glue a 1X1 piece of Walnut to the front of it. From most viewing positions a quick glance in the direction of the bookshelf gives the impression of walnut. Granted, once you're actually selecting a book you'd see the pine shelving, but it won't be as unattractive as an entire shelving unit in stained pine.You'll still need to spend the money for solid walnut sides, but you can save a bunch by using a "secondary" wood for the shelves with a "primary" wood front strip and face frame. The shelves are what, 50 to 80% of the total boardfeet in a bookcase? Made out of secondary wood, you're savings should be considerable.
Aamof, it isn't even really "cheating." Quality hardwood doesn't grow on trees ya know. ;> As it gets rarer, more precious, and more expensive, it makes good sense financially and ecologically to use secondary woods most places where looks aren't the primary concern. A quality casework piece of Cherry with pine or poplar drawer interiors is still a quality casework piece.
Somewhere between "too expensive to build" and "really crappy looking" is a compromise. Part of the fun of becoming a real craftsman is finding it. :)
Hope this helps and encourages, Michael
Assuming for some reason, you decided to not buy dark brown melamine covered particle board, then I have two tidbits of advice for you!
Advice #1 - Don a flak jacket and buy a brad nailer for defense (defence)...
Advice #2 - Pine is notorious for blotchiness whilst staining. Start here with:
Finish up with several slathers of:
Me, Minwhacks and Bruce Johnson all say "Yur Welcome!"
Thanks very much Michael, thats great advice. I'll give that a go. It's all in the "ideas floating around the head" stage at the moment, so you're advice has put me in a better direction.. Thanks again.
Stained pine.. HA! What was I thinking!? :-)
For what it's worth, you might consider using solid red oak with a dark stain. Without a grain filler, oak will have that "wood feel" you want.
You might even like it without the stain---my wife sure does! Sand it to 220, put on a few coats of Watco danish oil following directions on the can, and a week later put on a few very thin coats of a really good paste wax. Your books will thank you.
In fact, I bet you could finish the whole project for not much more than trying to stain the pine. With our local prices, red oak being $2.20/bf and #2 pine at about half that, I figure an 8-foot 11.5 inch shelf would cost $17.60 in oak, $8.80 in pine. Add $5 for a can of stain and you're in the ball park. Then again, you didn't mention how many of these you want to build---it gets hard to amortize $5 or $10 worth of stain if you need 20 of these shelves.
Other more knowledgeable folks have spoken, listen to them! And thank yourself that you aren't just giving up and going to Home Despot to get some cheapo shelving.
On Mon, 12 Apr 2004 15:19:52 -0400, Nova brought forth from the murky depths:
The slightly higher cost of the walnut looks mighty nice compared to the cost of the pineywood PLUS the stain PLUS the time/headaches it takes to do it several times. Add that stained pineywood always ends up looking _much_less_ classy_ than that nice, easy walnut does. Always.
But it's his call, and if that's what he wants...
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BW,
I think you'll need some sort of finish besides just wax to get the look that you're after. Consider one of the many wipe on finishes to give it a little luster. It won't fool anyone into thinking its walnut but it's as close as you'll probably get without veneer. Good Luck, Dave
For one thing, it's an affront to the Woodworking Gods, and they'll be very angry.
For another, it's virtually impossible to stain pine a walnut color without exotic "professional stuff." I don't know what the "professional stuff" is, but whatever it is, they spray it. I distribute commercially-produced furniture for a living, and I've seen tens of thousands of pieces of "dark walnut" stained SYP go through my hands. They get it to look almost halfway decent, but I've never come even remotely close to that kind of stain job with any of the BORG products.
The best solution is, of course, to use real walnut. Once you buy your first piece of walnut, all the dark stains will go in the trash. :) The only thing is it might be better to play with something cheaper and less addictive, like maybe cocaine.
If my memory is correct, I think cocaine is a bit too fine-grained to resemble Walnut. No matter what stain you put on it. ;>
Michael ...and it gets really gummy, too...
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