Hand planing walnut

[Bob Parker]

Hi, I've just recently become a neanderthal and have been planing everything in sight, which has just been pine up to this point. but now I've got a hold of some walnut and glued up boards to make a small top for a coffee table...of course now i've got to plane it. Are there any special considerations for planing walnut? Thanks!

[Wilbur Pan]

Not really. Walnut is one of the nicest woods to use hand tools on.

[Michael Faurot]

If you've mostly been working with Pine up to now, then practice on some bits of walnut before you actually try to plane something for a project. Walnut typically works well with hand tools and planes, but you'll find working with it to be different and possibly a bit more difficult than Pine.

If your ultimate goal is to smooth a glue-up of X number of pieces of Walnut, you may want to try to do a little pre-planing before the glue-up. As in try planing the face of each piece (before the glue-up) and make a note of which way the grain runs. Based on this, orient all of your pieces so the grain of each runs in the same direction. This way you can avoid reversing grain and tear-out.

[James Owen]

Hi, I've just recently become a neanderthal and have been planing everything in sight, which has just been pine up to this point. but now I've got a hold of some walnut and glued up boards to make a small top for a coffee table...of course now i've got to plane it. Are there any special considerations for planing walnut? Thanks!

Welcome to the dark side of caveman woodworking!!! We hope you enjoy your ride down the slippery slope.....:D

Walnut is a pretty friendly wood to plane most of the time. If you are trying to plane crotch figure, etc., then it becomes a bit more of a challenge, but most walnut planes very, very easily with lovely results. It's one of my favorite woods...FWIW.

A sharp iron and a light cut will give you a surface that looks like glass, feels like polished marble, and is ready to finish right off the plane. [If you're building a more formal piece, you may want to fill the pores before finishing, but for less formal pieces, you can apply finish right after you finish planing.] If you run into some cranky grain, a higher pitch plane (50 or 55 degrees) or a cabinet scraper will normally do the trick there.

[Bob Parker]

Thank you guys! thats what i wanted to hear... i'm in love with walnut too

[Brent Smith]

I'll just add that around some of the funkier grain a card scraper comes in handy at times. In general though, I think Walnut and Mahogany are the two easiest hardwoods to work with hand tools, especially for those new to them.