Finishing New Walnut Plywood vs. 50 Yr Old Walnut Plywood

[Jim Foster]

It's been a while since I've posted, mostly I lurk. Recently I decided to build a built in entertainment center with some very old walnut plywood I had. it's 3/4" 9 ply that is 50yrs old that still appeared very serviceable, regardless of the abuse it's been subjected to over the years. For a finish, I wiped on a coat of clear Danish Oil, and then several coats of oil based Polyurethane. The resulting look of the grain and depth of the wood is almost "Amazing." I needed a few more sheets for the back and several panels, so I bought some new 1/4" and 1/2" walnut Plywood at the local distributor.

After cutting out several 1/2" boards and applying the same finish routine to the "A" side, I am dumbfounded how dead and lifeless the new wood looks. It looks like a Home depot $30 birch or other low cost hardwood plywood that was stained brown. The grain patterns are not very good, but maybe OK if some depth and color could be brought out. Currently the depth and color looks dead.

The veneer on the new plywood looks to be 1/2 the thickness of the old stuff. Not sure if there just is not enough depth to the veneer to bring anything out. Any thoughts? I am tempted to make the panels for the doors out of hardwood now, even though the idea was to make a nice cabinet with as much plywood as possible. Anyone have any suggestions on how to bring out the grain and depth better than the simple finish I am using? The only thing I can think of trying would be to use a walnut colored Danish Finish and try several additional coats before the Poly coats.

[Jim Becker]

A lot...well, most...of walnut and walnut veneer these days is steamed during the kiln drying process to increase yields...the steaming darkens the sapwood so it doesn't stand out, but it also "muddies" the walnut's color. That old, old plywood may very well be surfaced with veneer that wasn't treated the same way. Un-steamed, kiln dried walnut and air dried walnut have a lot more color and life to them for sure! And yes, the veneers used on the older material are not surprisingly thicker. Times have changed.

Matching is likely going to be a challenge for you...and unfortunately, it may require you to work on both the older and newer material with dye/stain and other things to try and make them look very similar. That all needs to be done before you apply any oil or a product like "Danish oil".

[Julie Moriarty]

Maybe some dye to the poly or oil will help. Orange will bring out a deep, rich color. Yellow will brighten the wood. I've used yellow dye diluted in water to lighten figured sapele with good results.


Recently I added orange dye to poly to finish some sapo mahogany (utile) and the depth is amazing. Four coats of orange dyed poly followed by three coats of wipe on poly.

Not sure how well dye will perform on veneer but it's worth a try.

[Robert LaPlaca]

I would agree that the quality of the Walnut veneer isnt going to be as nice as the stuff from 50 years ago. As Julie posted, some orange dye will warm up the color of the new veneer, might want to try a fairly diluted dye mix like 1:3 or 1:4, then try your danish oil (please try on scrap first). Orange shellac works pretty good too, but Its out with the danish oil finish.

Just as a FYI the orange dye after it dries will make the Walnut look terrible, you need to try the whole finishing schedule before deciding if you like the results.

[John TenEyck]

I've used several different Transtint dye colors to bring out the depth and figure in walnut. You may very well have to use one color, or mix of colors, on the 50 year old walnut and another on the new plywood to get a uniform overall color. And, as Jim said, you may need to do more than just use dyes. But dye would be a good place to start, and then add a stain and/or toner only if required.

John

[Jim Foster]

Great info, thanks! I'll see what I can do. If I do another project in plywood, I'm going to try a different plywood brand to see if qualities are different, luckily there are two distributors nearby and both sell different brands