Thread: How To Make Tassie Oak Look Like Walnut

Originally Posted by ernknot

In the process of building a small hall table for the wife. The plan calls up walnut as the specified timber but I can only afford Tassie Oak. How do you suggest i go about staining the wood and finishing it to look like walnut or very close to it. How would I apply the stain and finish, brush or foam pad or ??.:confused:

G'day ErnKnot,

The two woods a pretty far apart in grain and figure, so I would suggest getting hold of some veneer for the visible parts - especially the top and apron, and veneer on to the T/O some walnut.

For the legs, you could use the same approach, but this would be much harder with which to achieve a decent look & finish, so why not use a contrasting wood? The choice would, of course be to your taste - even grain versus fugured, light, dark of broadly similar colour.

I can't see how any amount of staining or such would make T/O look even close to walnut. Of course, you could always take the basic design, and re use it with, say red gum, western red cedar, jarrah, or for a lighter touch, tas myrtle or such...
Cheers!

Good evening Ernie

Is HI a timber expert? I suspect not. Stain the TO with walnut stain, and lie!

TO is rather porous and as TO is a generic description for assorted, imported, politically incorrect, regional hardwood I suggest you try and get the lighter hued timber - not the reddish, jarrahish colour. Keep all your stock of a similar hue, seal it with a sealer - 1/2 mixed shellac & half metho would work. Sand it back to a fine finish then walnut stain, then shellac over then apply the sponsors cedar coloured wax with a bit of steel wool. Buff up big time and she'll luv it.

The character of the wood will never approximate Walnut, but you'll end up with the same colour and a deep, glowing finish.

Lie thru your teeth.

G'day ErnKnot,
I've not used Walnut, and only have a rough idea of how different the two woods are in terms of grain structure. Auld Bassoon suggests

The two woods a pretty far apart in grain and figure

I can't see how any amount of staining or such would make T/O look even close to walnut.

I also suggest you stay with the basic design, and your Tassie Oak. For a hall table you're possibly looking for a tight close grained top finished to a hard gloss. Judicious use of grain filler, stain and the right finish will give you that look. Years ago I saw a table which had been finished with six coast of floor estapool – it looked stunning, almost like glass.

ian

Sorry, just had dinner and a rather cheeky red. Tassie Oak is a generic Southern Oz hardwood, NOT as I said an Asian/Pacific import. I had Miranti in my mind.

Sorry - the EDIT button wouldn't work. Mea culpa.

Nuget, try nuget. walnut is chopped down to fast now and the sap wood is more prominent than years gone by. so now its steamed to darken it. when polished with out a toner it has that purple tinge in the diarrhea look. playing around with some dark purlpe and light and dark brown nuget will give you a better result than walnut stain

Hi Ernot,

I see that you're in Tassie. Have you thought about using blackwood rather that Tassie Oak ? Some of the blackwood I've seen is pretty dark, I actually have a blackwood slab that I mounted on top of a singer sewing bench which has really dark grain.

There's a vendor that posts in this forum by the name of Tasman - maybe give him a try and you might find the pricing comaparable to the Tas Oak you've been quoted on so far.


Cheers,


Justin.

What type of walnut... there's just a few!

Make it out of some nice, figured Tas Oak, finish it with an oil and wax finish and buy your wife some walnut tinted glasses.

Thanks for your help. I guess what I really need to do is get the T/O to a dark colour, does not have to be exaclty like wallnut.
Had thought of using blackwood but for a table top there is too much colour variation. The local supplier does not have what I need at this time.
I think I will have to experiment as was suggested and see what colours come up.
Unfortunatlely the legs of the table are from the redish type T/O and the rest of the table is from the creamy coloured T/O.
I take the point regarding veneer but I would have no idea how to go about, so staining has to be the go.

Wattyl Professional stain works well and I have a variety of them, but they don't take kindly to spirit based finishes.
If you go down the veneer path, you may as well use MDF as no one is going to see the substrate, unless the veneer lifts.
Veneering flat surfaces is not that difficult, cutting is the hardest part I have found but by applying cross linked PVA to both surfaces, let it dry then iron on the veneer (with a cloth as a medium so it doesn't mark).

If near enough is good enough try a stain made from turps with enough Feast Watson black japan (thanks, Uncle Neil) to make a darkish teak colour, then add brown and black brickies oxide in a 3:1 ratio.

If that doesn't make it dark enough, try applying two stain coats, but allow plenty of drying time between- or finish with two coats of tinted poly, made the same way but with poly instead of turps. The traps in these methods are that subsequent coats can dissolve the previous ones and bugger the colour- DAMHIKT. Also take care to wipe stain off with the grain, as the oxides tend to make the finish streaky. In spite of all that, it can still work pretty well.

Good luck
Rusty.