Tears in Walnut

[Esan Paydar]

Hi

I have spent the last 2 months reading most articles on finishing and now that I have made all my pieces I have been sanding for the last 5 days. Unfortunately I had to move out of the shop I made the stuff as the carpenter needed the space so I've had to sand in my own apartment. I am going to be posting a few more questions but for now I would like to know what I should do with these tears in the Walnut drawers I/we have made? (I was just going to leave them as they are)
What should do with the open pores? Perhaps on the cupboards the natural look is not so bad but ......
Secondly I was thinking to keep things very simple however adventurous I am so here's my steps
Sanded already from 100, 180, 220 to 320.
Clean apply BLO, then take of excess. Apply again after a few days, sand (1500) maybe!!! How many coats do you suggest....
Apply shellac (Padding)... couldn't find de waxed shellac here am in Iran so got normal shellac and will de-wax myself.

Please let know if you have other suggestions, I would love to hear from you as am I have spent the last three months of my life in the deep and now I have made my pieces if I ruin them I think I will jump of a bridge..... lol

I have made two bed side drawers, two ateliers, two walnut tables so excluding the tables I will probably use BLO on all.

Love from Iran

[John TenEyck]

Were those what you call tears there when you cut the wood or is it some kind of damage? I'm guessing it was there as soon as you cut the wood. Unless you know how deep it goes sanding or planing the wood down may not remove them. If that's true, I'd leave them as they are.

You've sanded to 320 grit so the pores are pretty small. Vacuum the wood and blow compressed air on the surface and the pores will be as open as they can be. BLO does look nice on walnut. One light coat is all it takes. You don't need to flood it on, and you gain nothing by doing so; just wipe on a light coat and let it dry/cure for 24 hours, then start padding on your shellac. It should look really nice.

John

[Jim Becker]

Esan, that's some pretty serious tear-out you have there and it's going to be difficult to remove by just sanding. If the tear out isn't too deep, you may be able to deal with it with a sharp hand-plane and some careful work.

By the way, unless you are only going to use something like a wiped on oil, such as pure tung oil or BLO, you don't need to sand beyond 220. I really only sand to 180 in most cases if I'm using a film finish.

I hope you can fix this and get to your next steps for the project!

[Matthew Hills]

Hard to tell what the tear-out looks like in person. When did it show up? Does it look okay if you wipe mineral spirits on it and put it in place?

Whatever you decide to do, don't jump in with a hand-held belt sander...

For sanding, I now really like the "Preppin Weapon" sanding block and going at it manually.
Start as coarse as you need and then move through the grits once the coarser grits have completed their jobs.

I would stop by 180 on the raw wood. (the only time I go much higher is if I've got curves that expose endgrain which I don't want to absorb too much finish)

Matt

[John Lankers]

Esan, those are beautiful pieces, if you feel they are ruined send them to me, I would be very happy.
The defects in the surface give it character and I would not worry, if you're concerned about the tearout in the center pic. I would probably do as others have suggested and use a sharp high angle hand plane and try to take off super thin shavings. It would be best if you could try it on a scrap piece first to see how it works. If not, another option would be to use a card scraper followed by maybe 180 to 220 grit sandpaper. Don't let it ruin your day those are very nice pieces.

[Jim Matthews]

I get tear out like this in North American walnut all the time.

It's a consequence of interesting grain patterns in wood,
and from what I've seen - it's unavoidable.

I use a fine blade scraper, which cuts as it is pulled toward me
and apply pressure on the "return" stroke as I push the blade
away from me; burnishing the surface.

My objective is to flatten the high spots enough that sanding is possible.

If you don't have access to a scraper with a handle, card scrapers
are an often suggested tool. I struggle with those, and can't recommend them
without reservations.

Lacking a card scraper, a well sharpened plane blade drawn toward you
with the back of the blade facing you will do much the same task.

It bears mentioning that when you are finished smoothing this area, the surface will NOT be
completely flat - and that's perfectly acceptable.

You're working with your hands, on a natural material.

*******

If you sand the final surface with a coating of shellac, cut with Alcohol the slurry which results
will leave fine dust in the pores. Some like that effect.

Personally, I celebrate the porous nature of Walnut and apply only Waterlox with abrasive pads
and finish with well buffed wax. I like the irregular feel of porous wood.

If you have access to Tom Fidgen's "Unplugged workshop" he mentions similar approaches to this common problem.

It's lovely piece you've shown, and your struggle is like the one facing us all.

Mastery is in your approach when things don't go according to plan.

هدیه با ارزش ترین از دست خود آمده است.

[ian maybury]

Hi Esan. It's amazing the way finishing effort makes such a difference to the look of wood. As the guys it looks like you have tear out - a lot depends on how deep, and on whether you can afford to remove enough material to get rid of it.

If power (or hand) planing the direction of cut matters as here: http://www.startwoodworking.com/post/tame-tearout-jointer-and-planer You don't want to be planing into a rising grain. A very light cut and very sharp knife reduces the risk too.

After that there's fancy sharpening steps that can help that involve honing a steeper/higher pitch micro bevel on to the cutting face of the planer knife/ or hand plane iron - there's pieces about on the topic including one by David Charlesworth which he originally ran way back in the UK mag Furniture and Cabinet Making.

The ultimate possibility for a planing fix is probably a very sharp smoothing plane with a steepish pitch or micro bevel, set to a very fine cut and with a close set chip breaker. Or a scraper - the neanderthal forum could advise in detail.

The other possibility is to fill it, and sand it back. A cop out in many eyes, but there's lots of commercial places that would do so without a thought. The wood may change in colour and spoil the match if you use a 'plastic' filler, and i'm not sure how it would take your finish. Never done it, but there's descriptions about of using epoxy filled with sawdust from the same wood: http://jonpeters.com/mix-fine-sawdust-with-epoxy-to-make-a-great-wood-filler/ For sure epoxy needs to cure very hard before sanding or it clogs paper, best to apply some heat and not rush it as in a warm room. Again not sure how it might finish, but it may well be OK.

Heading for nuclear/high labour options. Setting a filler strip of fresh wood into a template routed slot might be a possibility, but difficult over a large area as the sides of the inset would need to be curved and the grain a decent match.

If you have plenty of stock it might be an option to cut out the damaged section completely. Somebody (was it Mario Rodriguez?) had a piece in a mag on matching the grain when gluing up boards to make a wider panel by this means. A bendy rule or wood strip is used to mark a natural looking wavy curve along the line of the grain/the edge of the area to be removed. The cut is made on a bandsaw, and the edge cleaned up on maybe a spindle sander. The cut edge is then used to mark a matching cut line on the second panel (taking care to ensure the grain goes in the same orientation in both panels so both plane best in the same direction) - position to match as well as possible. It's again cut, and the two panels glued up edge to edge. The point is that smart placement of the cut line on both boards along the (weaving) line of the grain can mean that the joint is almost invisible...

[Mike Cutler]

Esan

A card scraper will remove that tear out for you. Work only the areas where the tear out is, scraping with the grain, and if i't not too deep, you'll never notice the change.
Depending on the finish you apply, that tear out will be very noticeable. Get a scraper, and you'll be amazed at what defects, natural and manmade, you can fix.;)
Beautiful work by the way. Everything looks very nice.

PS
Be forewarned, a scraper leaves a finish that sanding alone can just never achieve. You may end up scraping the entire face when you see the difference.;)

[Cody Colston]

That Walnut tear-out looks familiar. I've had the same thing happen when running Walnut through my bladed planer. I've found that the cuts have to be VERY light and particular attention must be paid to grain direction. Dampening the surface of the wood seems to help, too.

I second the advice to use a card scraper or even a smoothing plane (hand plane) to remove the tear-out. I've sanded with a random orbit sander and 80 grit sandpaper without much success trying to remove similar tear-out.

[Stan Calow]

I have filled some tearout like that with CA glue, successfully. Not that large an area however.

[Esan Paydar]

Thank you Jim for your advice and your persian verse. Perhaps I can add to that my favourite by RUMI.

Either Share my pain
Or teach me a remedy
You avoid ignorant me
Mix with me or teach me

[Esan Paydar]

Thank you John Teneyck, Jim Becker, Mathew Hills, John Lankers, Jim Mathews, Ian Maubury, Mike Cutker, Cody Colston and Stan Calow.

Thank you for all your advice by the way I have read most of your other posts when your helping people and what your doing is amazing spening 10/20 minutes of your time to teach some else what they should do....

After looking at it again I decided not to touch it, I figured it's little bit the Walnuts fault and little bit the machine that we ran the timber through, so I like a reminder to be careful next time.

[Art Mann]

The second photo looks like planer chip out to me. I use a fair amount of walnut and see that kind of thing often. Unless the wood is planed with very sharp knives or a spiral cutter head, a certain amount of that is inevitable. I plane walnut to within maybe 1/32 inch or so and then take it the rest of the way to nominal thickness on a drum sander. There is no problem with chip out in that case but I do start with material that has been sanded to 80 grit. With other woods and sharp knives, I start and finish sanding with 180 - or maybe a scraper. By the way, I agree with Jim Becker that sanding past 180 is usually a waste of time and if you are going to apply solvent based stain, it absorbs poorly on wood sanded to 320.

[fRED mCnEILL]

Another solution may be to highlite the problem area using black tinted epoxy. Having built a walnut Maloof rocking chair there were the inevitable problem areas and rather than trying to correct it by sanding, planing etc. I used epoxy filler.It looks fine. For a finish I used Paul Lemiski's concoction of equal parts BLO, Tung oil and polyurethane- 3 or 4 coats You've already sanded to 320 so if you go to 400 and 500 you will have an awesome finish.

Regards

Fred

[Jim Matthews]

Keep at the task, you'll find a quality solution.

It's the same struggle, for us all.

Best regards,
Jim

[Esan Paydar]

Well am happy after two months and 1 sleepless night, I got exactly what I had envisiged when I got the slabs.
Not bad for my first attempt.

[Shawn Pixley]

Very Nice!

[Jim Matthews]

Nicely done.

The offset for the integrated drawer pulls is clever.

kudos

[Al Launier]

Nicely done indeed! Perseverance pays off!!!

[Brian Tymchak]

PS
Be forewarned, a scraper leaves a finish that sanding alone can just never achieve. You may end up scraping the entire face when you see the difference.;)

I was thinking the same thing with just one little extra bit of advice. Assuming those drawers are all going into the same unit, if you scrape or plane one drawer face, you will likely want to scrape/plane them all to assure a uniform look. The scraped/planed face should have clearer grain as the fiber ends are cut instead of abraded.

[John Seybold]

I've found with highly figured walnut that no matter how good you are with a really sharp smoothing plane, set with the smallest mouth opening...you still get tearout somewhere on the board. I now finish my boards with a toothed blade in an adjustable jack plane. I back it off on each pass until I'm taking almost nothing off, and then I sand away the minute corrugations that are left (which takes only a minute). I used to get rid of the tearout locally with a scraper, but in some cases that didn't leave the surface flat enough for my taste. This always works, and the toothed blade won't tear out even the wildest interlocking grain.

[John Lankers]

I've found with highly figured walnut that no matter how good you are with a really sharp smoothing plane, set with the smallest mouth opening...you still get tearout somewhere on the board. I now finish my boards with a toothed blade in an adjustable jack plane. I back it off on each pass until I'm taking almost nothing off, and then I sand away the minute corrugations that are left (which takes only a minute). I used to get rid of the tearout locally with a scraper, but in some cases that didn't leave the surface flat enough for my taste. This always works, and the toothed blade won't tear out even the wildest interlocking grain.

My experience differs from yours. I use my 'Veritas bevel up Jack' with a sharp 50 deg. blade on highly figured wood and get an incredibly smooth surface (too smooth to absorb stain). The key is the cutting angle, sharpness of the blade, shavings 1 or 2 thou. thick, and a tight mouth, also the Veritas has a very thick blade which eliminates vibrations. I have an old No. 4 Stanley clone in the back of my tool drawer that I haven't touched in years.

[Jim Becker]

Outstanding work, Esan!

[John Seybold]

Sounds good, John! Next time I'm in Alberta (might happen) maybe I can watch you do it. I agree that a setup like that will give you the best results. I sometimes even go up to 55 degrees. It just seems that on a big slab, with curly figure, and knots, and who knows what, somewhere on that 24 square feet of wood I'm going to hit just the right area of just the wrong angle fibers and I'll get a little patch of tearout...and then I'm either trying to take the whole board down to the bottom of the tearout without making more, or scraping and living with the divot. The toothed blade is idiot proof, which I've concluded is about my level.

[John Lankers]

John, I have to agree with you. On 24 square feet that would be murderous.

[John Seybold]

Hey, John, as I think back, my post was totally off topic for taking out a little tearout on some drawers. In that case, I too would have reached for a high angle plane and smoothed it away. I'm just the bad general re-fighting his last war! I'm still battle-scarred from making a big table.

[John Lankers]

Hey, John, as I think back, my post was totally off topic for taking out a little tearout on some drawers. In that case, I too would have reached for a high angle plane and smoothed it away. I'm just the bad general re-fighting his last war! I'm still battle-scarred from making a big table.

No worries.:)
I notice you have a AD741, I have one coming which left factory on Monday to replace my CF531.
But now we're really hijacking the OP's thread, my sincere apologies to Esan.

[Scott DelPorte]

Your project seems to be coming together nicely. I pad shellac fairly often, and have found that it certainly pads better when its dewaxed. I think the finish I get from unrefined seedlac that I dewax myself ends up being a bit more durable than the one I get from highly refined shellac that I buy already dewaxed.

Padding shellac is not a fast process, but I like to use it as a finish for the tops of guitars. The shellac dries quickly, and the process works relatively well even in dusty environments. It also doesn't give off much in the way of fumes.

[Chris Padilla]

I love walnut...such a gorgeous wood and you did it find justice, Esan! :)

[Mike Cutler]

Esan

If that's you're first attempt, it's going to be nice to watch your work evolve over time.

Well done. Very well done!!

Mike

[John Seybold]

Agree. Nice job!