I have a piece of furniture I am making in Walnut. Some of the walnut has difficult grain. I hand planed the boards, but was not able to plane over the difficult grain. So I then scraped the boards. I was able to produce small, very thin curly shavings, therefore leading me to believe that I used the scraper properly. I found that the scraper dulled the apearance of the surface that the plane had left. I’m not used to looking at walnut, so I’m not sure if I have a satisfactory surface that is ready for a finish. In general it looks a bit dull. And the previous hand planed surface was brighter and richer. My question is: those this sound like normal performance from a scaper, is this a satisfactory surface, and should I directly apply a finish to the scraped surface. Or, should I follow up with fine sandpaper?
Also, this project has many joints that are to be glued up. Would you typically apply the finish to all the boards before gluing up, trying carefully not to apply finish to the surfaces that will be glued up? Or would you glue up the project and apply finish after the piece is assembled, even though you would not have access to applying finish to all the surfaces? My concern with the former method is not being able to prevent the finish from seeping into the surfaces to be glued. My concern with the latter method is not being able to apply finish to long stretches of end grain that will be concealed in a dado after assembly, along with other small surfaces. This piece will be going from Colorado to Florida, and I wanted to be sure to seal it properly. Apply finish before or after assembly?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
thanks,
sammer
Replies
Sammer,
Scrapers do dull the sheen of the wood a bit, but sand paper will do so even more. It won't help you much now, but I think Lie-Nielsen's low angle jack plane might do the trick.
Try wetting an area with mineral spirits to get a pretty good idea of what the finish will look like; I'll bet it will look a lot brighter than you expected.
I like to finish what I can before glue-up. Just makes things a lot easier, and if some does get on a joint surface it's easily removed. (At least easier than trying to remove glue.) Can you temporarily fill the dado with a piece of scrap wood? Tape?
Jeff
If you scrape against the grain, you will not get a burnished surface. Same as trying to plane against the grain.
For difficult situations where the grain switches back and forth, you may have to first scrape one way at the grain change then the other way on the other side of the grain change. In other words, you have to scrape in the direction of the way the grain goes as it goes down into the wood.
If you have your scraper well sharpened, just some light strokes back and forth will frequently give you a burnished surface. Have a light low and away from you so you can sight down the board.
With particularly gnarly wood, you may have to just sand and let it go at that.
If the end grain is in a well-made dado that will not be exposed to air, I wouldn't worry about sealing the end of it. If it's a concern, you could also use a little bit of glue "size" (watered down PVA glue) to seal the end grain. Otherwise, the joint itself should limit air circulation sufficiently.
Finishing before or after glue-up usually depends, for me, on the complexity of the piece and how easily I'll be able to get into tight spaces to apply the finish. To be honest, it also depends on where/when I'll be doing the glue-up and finishing (I tend to take things back and forth between my shop in Michigan and my apartment in Chicago, in order to avoid delays). Except for unique circumstances, I think convenience tends to be the primary driver for most other woodworkers I know, too.
As for scraping walnut, I've had to deal with squirrely grain, too, and I can second the prior two posts. Just this morning, I had a goofy piece of maple that had spots, about the size of a quarter or half-dollar, where the grain turned and went a different direction. I just had to move the piece (or myself) around and scrape the small area from a different direction. Presto! no problem. A quick check with mineral spirits and I was off to the races.
Good luck, and enjoy.
David
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