Walnut kitchen worktop, unifying shades

[Drudgeon]

A friend of mine is purchasing American Black Walnut worktops for his kitchen, but he would like to darken down to try to take out the variance of colour in the strips, not something I've needed to do before, and wondering if someone has any good advice.

I'm planning on using Osmo worktop oil, and noticed they do a range of oil tints, I was thinking of a few coats of the black tint, with the worktop oil over the top.

Any thoughts or suggestions are very welcome.

Dan

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Why doesn't he use wenge? There'll still be a bit of colour variation though.

 

[jasonB]

By decent wide board worktops. Most of the narrow/short stave ones use up all the bits of sapwood which is why you get the colour variation

 

[gregmcateer]

Not wishing to sound snobby, but if for some very strange reason he wants to remove the beauty of the natural look, with its rich variety in grain and colour, how about;

http://www.diy.com/nav/rooms/kitche...Romantic-Walnut-Timber-Effect-3000mm-10187793

 

[Drudgeon]

Thanks for the replies, we looked at full stave, but the cost difference went from around 1.7k (For the short stave) to 2.7 (ish) for full stave, and couldn't justify the cost difference, Wenge could have been an alternative but I believe they are ordered now. I'll check, he has gone for the wide boards which was an in-between cost between short and full stave prices, so that should cut out some of the tat, I believe the worktop suppliers recommended he use Danish on it but I disagreed.

Once they arrive `I will try some samples with different options and see what we come up with.

Presonally I would like to see the differences in shade/grain, but each to their own.

 

[Sgian Dubh]

A friend of mine is purchasing American Black Walnut worktops for his kitchen, but he would like to darken down to try to take out the variance of colour in the strips... Dan

It can be done, but it's a fiddly job and I wouldn't attempt either of the following methods for a kitchen worktop.

The problem is that simply dying the wood with a dark dye will change the colour of everything by the same amount. The dark bits will get darker, and the pale bits will too ... but the differences between the sapwood and the heartwood will still show through.

The first solution is localised sap staining undertaken with dye applied to the sapwood building up the colour through varying the dye colour proportions and applying the mix with a spray gun, usually an airbrush type gun. It's fiddly and time consuming. After that you apply a polish.

The second solution is to bleach the wood all to white and then colour it up to whatever you want, finishing with a polish.

As I said at the beginning neither solution is really a workable and realistic option in a kitchen worktop in my experience because of the abuse it's going to experience in life, no matter how carefully the owner of the worktop says their family will be. Inevitably someone will cause damage at some point in the future, and this usually leads to the damaged area being the beginning of extensive deterioration in the surface of the worktop. This then leads to things like stripping back or sanding, and then the process of refinishing using similar methods to the original has to be considered. It's much easier if the top's finished natural in the first place, and then simply restored as and when needed later: most people use some sort of easy to apply oil finish. The reality is that if your friend wanted uniformity of colour then purchasing a walnut worktop probably wasn't the ideal choice. Most people buy this kind of thing because they relish the variations in grain pattern, colour and texture and expect to live with it, repairs and all, not the opposite. Slainte.

 

[Matt@]

yes, its a case of trying to make something look different than it is. Rather like making one wood look like another. Getawayable on perhaps a smallish peice of furniture in the corner of a room but a worktop usually in front of a window is very unforgiving with fading issues....

 

[MMUK]

Muppet! Tell him he'd be better off buying a uniform finished laminate worktop instead of raping beautiful hardwood :evil:

 

[Drudgeon]

:lol: :lol: :lol:

Thanks for the advice (?) chaps, I'll pass on the messages of good will lol.

With around 11m of worktop space I don't think I'll be taping off the lighter blocks and attempting to darken them down, I'll try a couple of options on a sample and see how we go but I'm not holding out much hope.

:?

 

[Sgian Dubh]

With around 11m of worktop space I don't think I'll be taping off the lighter blocks and attempting to darken them down, I'll try a couple of options on a sample and see how we go but I'm not holding out much hope.

If you're referring to my suggestion of sap staining it doesn't involve any taping off. You load up a spray gun (air brush type usually) with rather dilute spirit based dye and freehand the job, literally misting dye on the target areas a bit at a time until you get the right colour. Then you polish over the top (usually) with a film forming polish to lock the colour in. Film forming polishes aren't generally good performers on kitchen worktops.

The best option I believe is to suggest to your friend he gets used to the idea of accepting the fact that the wood is what it is, learn to live with it, and enjoy its variations in colour, texture, grain, etc. It's that, or have a rethink and replace it with something that doesn't have the variance(s) that are perhaps bothering him, e.g., a plastic laminate, a solid surface material, or perhaps granite. Slainte.

 

[Drudgeon]

Many thanks for your advice and help Richard, from what you are saying it sounds as though it would be worth doing if it were not on a kitchen worktop, but as you say, it is a very high traffic environment that will need constant upkeep and maintenance, so I think I'll give it a miss, will have a look at the tops once they arrive and see how bad the differences are.

Thanks again.

 

[Sgian Dubh]

... I think I'll give it a miss, will have a look at the tops once they arrive and see how bad the differences are.

"Bad" is the wrong word really- how 'marked' the difference are might be better. The wood naturally has variations in colour, and the white sapwood is part of the wood. Sapwood not a fault in the grading system for walnut, so when you buy walnut you get sapwood, and there's usually plenty of it!

Yes, the practices I described are more suited to furniture where there's less wear and tear. For a worktop I think they're inappropriate, and probably a thankless task. Slainte.