All set to start building a hope chest. No ply all lumber. Top, sides,front, back,bottom boards joined.Line with aromatic cedar. I would appreciate comments from people who have used walnut. I can purchase kiln dried 4/4 2 sides surfaced for $4.16 B.F.( central Wi) Any comments as to pluses or negatives? I am not going to stain just using tung oil???? Oh cedar is$1.77 4/4 BF.
I work with walnut on a lot of smaller projects. It's easy to work and finishes beautifully with tung oil.
It really depends on what kind of look you want to end up with. For a natural-looking finish with just tung oil, you'd probably find that 220 was sufficient. I've gone even finer than that when I wanted to finish with poly to a mirror-like gloss.
Charlie, Do you use any sort of pore filler on Walnut?
Dick Durbin Tallahassee
Using an oil/varnish finish on walnut, run through all the grits to 320 (using an air compressor or tack cloth between grits), then burnish with #0000 steel wool before applying the first coat of oil.
... works for me.
I don't. And if you follow Swingman's method you'll really get a glassy-smooth surface without using pore filler.
I've used some walnut in a couple projects, and it's a great wood with which to work. Quite hard, but it's not difficult to work with either machines or hand tools. If I needed some, and it were available for about $4/bf, I'd definitely get enough for my project and some extra.
Good choice. Almost any other clearcoat would be fine too, but tung oil looks good, it's fairly easy to apply, and it's non-toxic. I used a urethane varnish (for more protection) on my last project containing walnut, and the clearcoat really brought out some 3D figure in the walnut that I didn't see at all before finishing. Good luck, and have fun working with this great wood! Andy
Some thoughts on cedar linings, which are inserted or applied _after_ finishing both sides of the walnut and allowing the odor to dissipate. Even kiln dried and resin set boards are likely to bleed a bit, given the amount of resin available. Leaves you the option of finishing the inside of the lining with shellac to keep stuff from getting sticky and letting the odor come from the back, or my preferred, a sachet or two for odor, easily renewable. No sense hiding walnut, even on the inside.
Good man ... like cherry, it should be a sin to stain walnut.
Here's one made with both walnut and cherry, unstained, that just had its third coat of oil/varnish finish applied at lunchtime today (1/2/07):
A couple more coats of oil/varnish, followed by three more coats of oil/wax should do it.
.... and I kinda like the smell of the finish permeating the office. ;)
Well, dovetails are indeed even more striking in "oiled" walnut than they are many other woods. ;)
Looks great, Swingman! And doesn't walnut smell great when you cut it, too? :-)
Lee, if you decide to do dovetails, better get a lot of practice on cheap wood first!
Thanks ...
Yeah, another person with a highly developed sniffer? Both cherry and walnut smell wonderful to me when being sawed!
Being somewhat color challenged, other senses, like smell, seem to compensate to the point that I can tell what kind of wood was delivered to a job site that afternoon just by walking by in the dark, or what the trim guys are cutting up on the second floor.
But, apparently like clashing colors, it can cut both ways ... a 70's German dance hall, in the dead of winter, comes immediately to mind ... wheeeww! ;)
I love to work with walnut, it's easy to work, and smoothes up great
If you can find some with good contrast between heart and sapwood, usually available only in air dried stuff you can do stunning things.
I found that turned walnut projects seem to benefit from a first coat of walnut stained oil (Watco) to bring out more color.
Try a sample and see.
Negatives--- walnut can be irritating, avoid its dust. Its sawdust kills plants, don't use it for mulch on anything you want to live.
Old Guy
You can use the drop offs from a cedar closet lining kit to cover the bottom of a drawer.
Lay drop offs in loose, but with T/G engaged, so that at a future time they can be removed and lightly sanded to release more aroma, then reinserted.
Lew
SWMBO grabs any of my aromatic cedar cutoffs for this very purpose. AAMOF, if I don't save them for her, it's big trouble.
Cutting dovetails is NBD, if you are patient and keep your wits about you.
The biggest part of the task is twofold:
1) Making sure the jig is set up properly.Lots of scrap pieces of wood to make test cuts are a must.
When you get the jig adjusted, make a sample set for each corner that is clearly marked with a felt pen. I use a lot of 1/2" Birch ply scrap for this task.
2) Making sure the parts to be cut are positioned in the jig correctly.3) Reread the instructions before every cut to confirm, before cutting.
Just went thru the above to cut 36 dovetailed corners for a current project.
Not difficult, just demanding that you do it right.
It is strictly a plan "A" job, there is no plan "B".
Lew
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