Est. 1998 — 27 years of woodworking knowledge
Monday mystery
A dirty dismally dark walnut gate leg table was winter completely refinished but last week started to drip water. The table was crying and before I could send it to the Vatican as a candidate for canonization, a fellow woodworker came by asked what kind of wood it was then told me to strip the finish and hose down the piece with MORE water to solve the problem. What did he know was happening? Hint: His cue was visual.
Uh, Walnut, Didn't You Say?
Hint:
Walnut yes. Has to do with color of same.
Answer-Experience counts.
Well his cue was that the walnut was not chocolate brown but now �old� walnut red/orange. From that he deduced that I had bleached the wood. He was right. He also recognized that since it was done in the winter when there was little humidity the chlorine had entered the wood after being cleaned, then stripped, and some dried and crystallized just waiting to be reconstituted again. With the humidity of summer, no AC where the table is, and p poor sealing the moisture was attracted to the crystals until there was enough to form a tear�more than a few tears. Hence the crying table. Lesson--Don�t bleach without washing it down thoroughly--twice. An acidic solution will help neutralize the bleach. When you�re sure all bleach is gone then you can stain and seal. That winter I never did get to the sealing part except for a one time wipe on poly which even though thin took forever to dry in the cold garage. My woodworker friend told me he knew because it happened to a hutch he built years ago.