Most furniture today is sprayed. A polyurethane skin, cured in an hour. It looks fine on delivery day. Then it scratches, clouds and cannot be repaired. We finish our timber differently. It takes 3 weeks. It is worth it.
A hand-rubbed oil finish sits inside the wood, not on it. The grain stays open to the touch. Light enters the surface and comes back warm. American walnut, treated this way, seems to glow from beneath.
Preparing the surface
The work begins before any oil is opened. Every face is hand-planed, then sanded through 6 grits. We stop at 320. Finer than that and the pores close. Then the piece is wetted with distilled water. The grain rises. We sand once more, very lightly. The surface is now stable.
Eleven coats, thinly
The first coat is flooded on with a brush. Pure tung oil, cut with citrus solvent. We let it soak for 30 minutes. Then every drop of excess is wiped away. Left on the surface, it would go gummy. Wiped back, it cures hard inside the fibre.
The piece rests for 24 hours in a warm room. Then the next coat goes on. Thinner each time. Applied with a folded cotton pad. Rubbed in circles, then with the grain. Between coats we cut back with 0000 steel wool. Never sandpaper. Eleven coats in all.
You are not painting the wood. You are feeding it.
Rafiq Ahmed, workshop master, 30 years at the bench
Burnishing and rest
After the last coat cures, the surface is burnished. A dry pad of raw wool. Worked hard, 20 minutes per square metre. Friction brings up a low sheen. Not gloss. Something closer to the surface of a river stone.
The finish needs another 2 weeks to fully harden. We hold every piece in the studio for that time. Then it travels. A light re-oiling every 2 years keeps it whole. A scratch is rubbed out with oil and a cloth. No one has to send it back. That is the quiet advantage.
