Tinted oil finish

[loyd]

I have a walnut bowl cut from a slab of walnut with lots of punky sapwood and some pretty firm heartwood. My hope was to get the sapwood to match the heartwood and thought that walnut tinted Watco oil would do the job, but it doesn't really look very good. Anyone have advice????

[southpaw57]

If only Jack Kincella used the forum...……….

[loyd]

Agreed!

[loyd]

I decided to go with a mixture of Bob Flexner and Tom Cowan advice. Flexner, in his wood finishing book, said that one of the purposes of shellac was as a barrier coat to protect a film finish from whatever lies beneath it. The Watco Oil finish on my workpiece was put on pretty heavy [maybe 3 coats] trying to cover up the very light sapwood, and I have been procrastinating over what to put on it as a finish. Tom Cowan told me years ago that I could use an oil finish to bring out the figure and then use lacquer but to wait for three days to let the oil dry well.

My favorite finish is Lacquer but I contemplated using gloss polyurethane which, to put it lightly, isn't my favorite. Flexner's shellac advice appealed and I happen to have some Zinsser rattle can shellac so that's what I've used [for better or worse]. Now, I can supposedly forget the polyurethane and use lacquer on top of the shellac.

Stay tuned!