Finishing walnut

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I'm looking at buying a piece of walnut plank to make some floating shelves. What's the best way to finish it? Plane, sand then oil?
 
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Several coats of oil will give a nice finish on walnut, make sure you remove excess oil after about five mins as any left on the surface will stay sticky. Sand to 320grit and rub down between coats with a grey scotchbrite pad.

Jason
 
i'd personally poilsh it with button polish and then wax it! Great looking finish with depth. And not too hard just a bit of practise required!
 
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its just a type of shellac based polish, its sort of a type of french polish!
traditional too.
 
the other thing I am considering is attaching a piece of glass underneath the wood as another shelf, say 100m below the piece of wood. can you think of anything I could use to attach it? I need some kind of rigid, attractive bolt or something?
 
Oils a lot easier to apply

For the shelf you need what are commonly known as "stand-offs" I've used several types to raise glass off surfaces like this and this but there is no reason they cant be used the other way round. You could also make something up with studding, dome nuts and some lengths of chrome pipe to slip over the studding

This company do a large range, the streamliner spacers would be the best bet, 2nd row up, 2nd from left

Jason
 
the other thing I am considering is attaching a piece of glass underneath the wood as another shelf, say 100m below the piece of wood. can you think of anything I could use to attach it? I need some kind of rigid, attractive bolt or something?

Man, you must have high ceilings!
 
hey chriz, oil is definately easier but i didn't say french polish was easy just that its not that hard to get good results, and in my opinion is a better deeper finish on dark woods especially. It is pretty time intensive but the results are worth it, so if your thinking of doing a bit more woodwork and or you like it i would say give it a try it is that bit more special. If your just looking for a good attractive finish as mentioned by jason oil is much easier.

There are loads of good guides online for french polishing or a decent woodworking book will have a section on it.
 
cheers jason, exactly what I was after, just couldn't find them on the net.

hopefully the glass won't be too pricey.
 
Jason, have you used the streamline spacers? I've asked for a quote, but have had no reply yet. How much do you think it would cost to get 8 of these each of approximately 150mm length? I have no concept of whether these are expensive fixtures or not!

Got a quote for glass - two pieces of toughened, drilled in the corners, 250mmx300mm. £40. Okey I thought.
 
The last couple of times I have used Prefit/Preedy They have just given me a lump sum quote for glass and fittings. As an example the table that I linked to earlier came in at £750 for glass, 12 fittings and the spanner for the fittings. (the countersunk holes in the glass are expensive)

Make sure you use toughened glass

As I said you could do something yourself with a length of chrome pipe from a plumbers merchants, some M10 studding and a few chrome dome head nuts. Just epoxy the studding into the underside of the shelf, accurately cut the pipe with a pipeslice and put a nut on the bottom.

Jason
 

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