#2 common cherry and/or walnut useful for furniture building

[cpowell]

picked up some lumber from Jack (saw4you) today. Great guy! very patient with a newbie like me.

after getting home, I started making my hand plane cabinet with the walnut. first time using hard wood to make anything (got some QSWO and mahogany from Scott a while ago. haven't done anything with them yet. the mahogany is to nice for me as the first project). I thought it must be really cool to use my hand planes to dress the wood to make hand plane cabinet. the harder wood and the tiny bit of dirt dulled the original bailey blades (they were fine for pine) in no time. will have to get some new blades soon. but seeing the rough wood (looking like a piece of crap) turned into a nice attractive piece of wood is very rewarding. what do you guys do before you start planing the rough saw lumber?

a note on color:
in the rough form the color of walnut was brown. freshly planed color is dark grayish brown with a purple tint. then the UV will turn it back to the golden brown, right? I put a bit of BLO on one corner and a bit of SEALCOAT shellac on the other. the BLO really warmed it up. but the shellac did almost nothing. so I am wondering, what's a good way to finish walnut to get that great george nakashima look?

I used danish oil on my hand tool cab. I like the close finish and it will be easy to wipe on another coat a year from now if I want to dress it up. Normally I wouldn't use danish oil inside a cab but it works just fine for a tool cab in the shop.

Shellac is a traditional finish and there are several folks here that can provide advice...just not me! :gar-La;



Chuck

 

[JimD]

Rough sawn wood goes through my old Ryobi AP-10 planner. If I decide to do things "right" I may first surface one face and edge on my old Inca jointer/planner. I do not use the planning attachment now that I have the Ryobi but should use it as a jointer more. A jointer does a much better job creating a flat board and straight edge. A handplane is an alternative to the jointer but I never take the time to do things that way. I usually do things the easiest way which I recognize is not the best way and just use the planner.

Seeing purple highlights in walnut is a good sign. It means the wood was not steamed to darken the sap wood - but it also dulls the heartwood a lot. It was likely air dried which I believe is best for walnut. I like to put boiled linseed oil on walnut, let it dry a week or two, then an outdoor varnish with UV inhibitor. Walnut bleaches out in direct sunlight to a much lighter and unattractive color. Furniture that will not see direct sunlight will do this slowly but will still lighten with age. The UV inhibitor in the finish should eliminate this for furniture out of the direct sun, at least. If you want the walnut darker, and more protection against UV, you might experiment with stain.

Curiously, the reaction of cherry to sunlight is the exact opposite. It darkens.

Jim

 

[victoon]

I'm currently building counters and display tables from cherry the customer owned and the results are very similar to the photo of the door. The customer's dad used to build pallets and would pull anything that looked too nice to go into a pallet and add it to an uncovered stack outside. After cutting out the mold, rot and windshake I'm left with about a 50% yield. When I'm done in a few more weeks I plan to post some pictures. So far the customer and myself are both happy with the results from rustic material mixed with traditional technique.

I look forward to see the results! was it hard on the tool?

 

[victoon]

Rough sawn wood goes through my old Ryobi AP-10 planner. If I decide to do things "right" I may first surface one face and edge on my old Inca jointer/planner. I do not use the planning attachment now that I have the Ryobi but should use it as a jointer more. A jointer does a much better job creating a flat board and straight edge. A handplane is an alternative to the jointer but I never take the time to do things that way. I usually do things the easiest way which I recognize is not the best way and just use the planner.

Seeing purple highlights in walnut is a good sign. It means the wood was not steamed to darken the sap wood - but it also dulls the heartwood a lot. It was likely air dried which I believe is best for walnut. I like to put boiled linseed oil on walnut, let it dry a week or two, then an outdoor varnish with UV inhibitor. Walnut bleaches out in direct sunlight to a much lighter and unattractive color. Furniture that will not see direct sunlight will do this slowly but will still lighten with age. The UV inhibitor in the finish should eliminate this for furniture out of the direct sun, at least. If you want the walnut darker, and more protection against UV, you might experiment with stain.

Curiously, the reaction of cherry to sunlight is the exact opposite. It darkens.

Jim

I planed one piece of wood by hand and gave up:no:, gaining all new respect for those who do this the old fashioned way from the beginning to end. I did the rough jointing and planing with power tools instead.

does anyone have a picture of walnut after some color bleeding? I am wondering if it will turn more gray or more golden.