Dirty looking finish on walnut.

[Citracal]

Can someone help me with this?
I have just bought a walnut slab section with the intention of making my mum and myself a coffee table.
Firstly I sanded with 120 grit then 180 and finally finished with 240 grit.
I thought that when I applied the natural danish oil it was going to really bring out the colour, the heartwood looks ok but the sapwood sides of the slab now just look dirty.
Where did I go wrong?
Thanks

How did you apply the Danish?

One coat won't give it much shine/depth. Usually when using Danish and wanting to make the most of the finish you want to sand it to 400, and use 3 applications. You need to buff it off very soon after application, leave it overnight repeat again, and then another the next day. With each application it will gel quicker so you have to buff sooner each time.

Danish is a beautiful finish but it must be applied correctly or it will look pretty pathetic relative to what it could be.

 

[--Tom--]

My understanding is that walnut is graded differently from other woods in that sapwood isn’t treated as a defect so is factored in to the dimensions used for calculating volume- so when buying walnut you always pay for any sapwood on the board you buy.

 

[Parbynat]

It's just annoying that if I have paid for the sapwood I have paid approximately 40 to 50 pounds for timber riddled with woodworm that is now sat on the ground in my garden getting rained on.

When I applied the oil after final sanding of 240 grit the oil immediately turned the sapwood a dirty colour. I wiped the oil off straight away thinking the longer it was left on the surface the darker it would go, only 1 coat had been applied.

 

[Adam W.]

Live and learn, you hopefully won't make the same mistake twice.

 

[Sgian Dubh]

My understanding is that walnut is graded differently from other woods in that sapwood isn’t treated as a defect so is factored in to the dimensions used for calculating volume- so when buying walnut you always pay for any sapwood on the board you buy.

You make a good point with regards to the American appearance grading system. The rules for heartwood and sapwood in North America varies from species to species. Sapwood in cherry is considered by makers as undesirable as it detracts from the brown heartwood most buyers seek, whereas in ash and maple it’s considered desirable as it’s white. It’s not unusual to find American black cherry or black walnut boards, in which the sapwood of both species isn't considered a defect, where one side shows all heartwood and the other is almost completely white sapwood.

As a corollary to the above, it is rare to find waney edged North American hardwoods for sale in the UK: North American imported boards are almost always square edged largely for the purpose of economical packaging and transportation so it's possible, as has already been suggested, the board in question in this thread is European in origin, possibly even from the UK. Slainte.