# Walnut



## RussellAP (Feb 21, 2012)

I've never worked with walnut before, but I have some nice 15/16 boards about 8' long. 
I keep hearing people say they want to finish walnut and I'm scratching my head. Protect walnut, but how can one stain, or use some color on it? This I don't understand. Walnut is too dark to take anything that would be noticeable and if it did, why even use walnut to begin with.

So when you say, 'finish' on walnut, you're referring to protection….right?


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## ShaneA (Apr 15, 2011)

I use pure tung oil/mineral spirits on walnut all the time Russ. Deepens the color, pops the grain. Then, once dry a clear coat of poly or lacquer on top of that.


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## JesseTutt (Aug 15, 2012)

There are color variations between heartwood and sapwood. Sometimes you need stain to make everything match.


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## CharlieM1958 (Nov 7, 2006)

Russell, walnut is a tricky wood that should only be finished by those having experience with it. Give me your address and I will have it taken off your hands immediately. 

Seriously, no…. you don't really want to stain it. There are any number of clear finishes that will work wonderfully to bring out the beauty of walnut. Danish oil, boiled linseed oil, oil based polyurethane, water based polyurethane…. just to name a few.

You will hear strong opinions for and against various finishes for walnut. I highly recommend you experiment and find what you like best


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## hhhopks (Nov 22, 2011)

Rus,
Wake up. How can you possibly not know about walnut?
You need to start working with it.
Walnut is one of the exotic wood that is highly valued (from worldwide perspective). Perhaps we may over looked it. It is very common in your area and often is available dirt cheap. You can easily find walnut for less than $4.00/bft. CL often show people selling if for $2.50 or less.

HHH OPKS


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## Lumber2Sawdust (Jul 22, 2010)

Since this is the internet, somebody has to have an opposing opinion!

I followed the advice that you shouldn't use any stain on walnut. I made a coffee table using just danish oil, and it looks fantastic. However, I took a chair-making class with a local pro woodworker and he recommends using a stain on walnut because it will bleach out some of its color over time (sort of the opposite of cherry which gets darker with age). The sun here in CO is intense, so it can accelerate the process so I used "special walnut" stain on the chair, and this bookmatched walnut slab I'm working on right now. The stain does add a little color, but I don't think it diminishes the amazing grain in these slabs. The finish on top of the stain is 2 parts varnish, 1 part tung oil, 1 part BLO applied with steel wool. The finish is durable and almost feels soft to the touch. (sorry for the poor camera-phone pics in bad shop lighting)





































After experimenting with this stain/finish combination, I don't know that I will try anything else for walnut.


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## GaryC (Dec 31, 2008)

Your question….. yes, finish = what you call protection. Stain gives color. Finish is the last thing you do. It "finishes" your project. Most of us don't stain walnut. Some do. Like Charlie and some others, I use oil as the finish. It will change the color too. Try it on a piece of scrap wood and you'll understand


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## SteviePete (May 10, 2009)

Shellac, man!! Shellac and wax-that's the ticket. s


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## shampeon (Jun 3, 2012)

I personally like walnut finishes with a bit of red tone in it. So for me that means garnet shellac, or aniline/TransTint dye in the finish-oil, lacquer, etc.-to act as a toner. By spraying the toner, you have more control over the final color.


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## wormil (Nov 19, 2011)

Walnut has a wide variety of color from deep chocolate, light brown, tan, to a baby poop yellowish-green. When it comes to sapwood it's perfectly acceptable to use a stain. Overall walnut is a wonderful wood, beautiful, lots of figure, hard but still easy to work.


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## donwilwol (May 16, 2011)

just don't paint it! Walnut looks good no matter what you do.


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## HalDougherty (Jul 15, 2009)

You've got some great advice. I worked out a secret formula to finish walnut years ago. Gunstocks (I carve a lot of them) have been made from walnut since before dirt. The finish that's been used forever is an oil finish. There are several on the market made to both add oil and varnish in one step. But, an 4 oz bottle costs as much as a quart of either varnish or oil. So, I mix pure tung oil in a 50-50 ratio with thinner for the first few coats. After I sand to 220 grit, I start wet sanding using my 50-50 mixture with wet/dry sandpaper from 320 grit up. Walnut has pores that will show as pin holes if they aren't filled and the wetsanding forces the microscopic sawdust into the pores with the tung oil which hardens to make a pretty good finish. The goal at this point isn't to build up a coat of finish, but to fill the pores and smooth the wood. After I get to 400 grit or slightly higher if I've laminated maple or cherry to the walnut. Then I mix the thinned tung oil in another 50-50 mixture using exterior spar varnish. The varnish leaves a hard surface, but if it gets scratched, a few minutes with some fine sandpaper will remove the scratch and more tung oil, thinner and varnish will restore the surface and the fix won't show. Good luck finishing your walnut. If you are still nervous about finishing your project, practice on some small scrap pieces.


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## RussellAP (Feb 21, 2012)

Hal, I'm not nervous about it at all. The walnut I have is beautiful with some crotch pieces that will make great sides to a rather large bookshelf. After cutting this wood and seeing how beautiful it was with nothing on it, I will likely try and keep it that way after sanding it down smooth. I plan to use mainly wax on it without any oil, then buff it out with some 320/600 then rewax and buff with buffer. I will of course take some pieces and try some different finishes, but I don't really see the need to get fancy with it.


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## gfadvm (Jan 13, 2011)

The only thing I have to add is that stain WILL NOT work to make sapwood match heartwood!


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## Charlie5791 (Feb 21, 2012)

Funny you should mention walnut….









Lighting isn't the greatest. This is our island counter top in the garage getting a finish applied. I'm using Waterlox. It's a counter top. I wanted durable and repairable, but not a "furniture finish". This fits in with our kitchen remodel as it's kinda taken on a theme of like a beach cottage.  Walnut is beautiful and the waterlox lets those iridescent portions really shine through. You could not PAY me to put poly on this stuff.


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## wormil (Nov 19, 2011)

The only thing I have to add is that stain WILL NOT work to make sapwood match heartwood!

Why not? Has worked well enough for me.


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## Hoosier25 (Jul 30, 2012)

Orange Shellac is my favorite, hand rubbed out.


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## ssnvet (Jan 10, 2012)

Just a funny anecdote about a desk I "re-claimed" from the dumpster on a landscaping job site (I was removing two huge burning bushes, so why not toss the desk on the trailer as well).

The desk was an old style wooden desk, like you'd expect to see in a gub'ment office circa 1940. And it had been re-finished with some awful brown surface coating with olive colored streaks in it (looked kind of like a 70's version of Polyshades).

I used it for a workbench and eventually parked a drill press on it, and then when I picked up an old Craftsman jointer on a rickety wooden stand, I hatched a plan to convert the desk into to a multi-tool work station, by dropping the top at one end 6" (eliminating the shallow drawer) and then pulling the file drawer under that and mounting the motor in the cavity.

When I cross cut the top, my heart sank…... it was a solid walnut desk :^(

I was depressed for a month.


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## RussellAP (Feb 21, 2012)

Oh God.


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## gfadvm (Jan 13, 2011)

Wormil, I used MW dark walnut and it darkened the heartwood but barely darkened the sapwood .


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## wormil (Nov 19, 2011)

@gfadvm, I had no trouble using an oil based stain, turned a sickly yellow sapwood into a nice chocolate brown, forget which brand but it wasn't MW.


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## Henry6 (Nov 6, 2012)

Walnut is such a great looking surface to begin with. A clear stain would be a good option to protect the wood without damaging it in the future. Make sure that the stain you choose is compatible with the surface though, so when you are purchasing the finish or stain ask the specialist which is best for your surface. You may want to check out a product from Storm System they have great finishes for wood surfaces indoor and outdoor.


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## MashMaster (Feb 12, 2011)

Holy cow, that chair is fantastic. I'm going to go through out all my tools now. I'm not worthy.

I'm currently working on my first Walnut project (country kitchen table). What finish would you suggest for that? Something water repellant


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