First Coat of Danish Oil is Done!

Doors, drawers, and panels - getting some color

First coat of Danish oil is done, and it looks beautiful. I used Watco Dark Walnut, which is giving us exactly the warm, chocolate brown we wanted. Sorry, the pictures don't show it accurately.

One thing I'm realizing is this kitchen is going to be almost un-photographable on account of the way Walnut reflects light so differently from one angle to another. It'll look entirely different depending on the kind of light or where you're standing. Not sure what the effect will be with all the different panels and doors all over the kitchen.

Before I was able to apply the first coat of Danish, I had to not only sand every surface, but also had to resand all the edges. Evidently the veneer swelled a bit so my nice, smooth edges had become rough and jagged in many places. Naturally, in the process, I went too fast and tore up the veneer in spots. Not too awful though. It's the imperfections that give it character.

So, with the edges fixed, I sanded the flat surfaces with 220 grit and went to town with the Danish oil. I found the Danish really easy to work with. Just wet a rag with the oil and wipe it on. It goes on thin but really gets into the wood.  I worked on 4 or 5 panels at a time, rotating through them trying to keep them all wet for at least a half hour. I ended up doing three successive coats per panel, which seemed to help even out the finish without excess buildup. Some areas would soak right in while others would pool up to let you know they were wet enough, and by the third coat it seemed to be filling in the thirstiest areas pretty well. In hindsight, I think I should have worked the oil in more aggressively than I did. Regardless, after all that, I let things dry another 15 minutes, wiped off any excess oil, and set them aside to dry for 72 hours.

Fast forward to last night. I tried wet sanding with the Danish oil, but met with total failure. I just couldn't get it to stay wet enough, and all it did was build up gunk that smeared the surface. The idea was to build up a slurry of sanding debris that would fill in some of the larger crevices in the surface, but now I'm thinking maybe that only works with solid wood, not veneer. Anyway, I reverted to dry sanding with 400 grit and then rubbing on another coat of oil as normal. That worked out just fine. Danish oil includes some varnish in the mix which is filling in the crevices quite nicely. It's not baby-butt smooth, but I don't think I'm going for a glass finish anyway. A couple coats of wipe-on poly and I should be golden.

FWIW, don't waste your money on fancy sanding blocks. I have two of those 3M rubber dealies, and they've both warped into a curve making them impossible to control. All they do is build up solid gobs of sanding debris in the middle of the sandpaper. I do much better with a simple block of MDF.

So! As of tonight, I've got a second coat of Danish oil on 10 panels... ~30 more to go. Damn the day job! I'm hoping to start demolishing the old kitchen by end of the month, so all these panels need to be done and dry before that.