Walnut sapwood??

[Jason White]

Any tips on darkening sapwood in black walnut to make it blend in with the rest of the wood?

Jason

[ken gibbs]

I use a dark walnut stain on all walnut projects and dark walnut will cover up the lighter walnut sapwood. And why should you use a dark walnut stain on dark walnut wood?

Because walnut will bleach out to a near white tone if it sits in sunlight long enough. My wife has a family table that sat in a window for fifteen years. The side exposed to direct afternoon sunlight bleached out to a butternut shade. So if you use a dark walnut stain, this will retard or eliminate this color change.

[Lee Schierer]

My Dad had some walnut sapwood stain that I used on the back panel of a china cupboard I made. The color still matches after more than 10 years. Do a google search for walnut sapwood stain.

You can also make a home made walnut sapwood stain with the walnut husks.

[Frederick Rowe]

Try TransTint dye in Dark Walnut. Mix with water as directed and wipe on with a cloth of sponge. Adjust strength as necessary. Practice on a cutoff until you get what you want. You can use just about any finish, but you might need a coat of shellac to lock the dye in if the finish coat is applied with a brush or pad.

The key is to experiment, including your final finish.

TransTint is available at: http://www.homesteadfinishingproducts.com/htdocs/TransTint.htm

[Joe Spear]

Several years ago Fine Woodworking magazine had an article on coloring sapwood (either walnut or cherry) to match the darker parts of the boards. I don't remember exactly when, but a little research might uncover the article. There were a bunch of steps to do the job.

[Darius Ferlas]

I recently experimented with a table top glue-up of varying shades of color which included sapwood. To equalize the differences I shot a layer of de-waxed shellac (Zinsser Sealcoat) followed by alcohol based stain (brown walnut). I was pleased with the result that bears no indication of sapwood.

[Kent A Bathurst]

Try TransTint dye in Dark Walnut. Mix with water as directed and wipe on with a cloth of sponge. Adjust strength as necessary. Practice on a cutoff until you get what you want. You can use just about any finish, but you might need a coat of shellac to lock the dye in if the finish coat is applied with a brush or pad.

The key is to experiment, including your final finish.

TransTint is available at: http://www.homesteadfinishingproducts.com/htdocs/TransTint.htm

It also helps to put some min spirits on the adjacent heartwood, to give you a better target of what to match. The freshly dyed sapwood will fade in depth a bit as it dries. This tip comes from a class with Jeff Jewitt of Homestead - watched him do it on walnut.

[Scott Holmes]

Jason,

Blending just the sap wood can lead to a mismatch in the future. Look at the walnut in my album; it was 20-30% sapwood when I got to the jobsite. TransTint Dark Walnut dye in alcohol SPRAYED, no wiping.