# How to make oak look like walnut



## El Zagna (Dec 9, 2008)

I'm restoring a staircase in an old house. The handrail and most of the balusters are walnut, but it appears that some of the balusters were damaged and replaced with oak. 

I had intended to finish it it all out with a natural finish like Danish oil, but now I have to figure out how to get the oak to look like walnut. The main problem is the contrast created by the oak's very open grain. 

So far I've tried simply staining the oak with Minwax Walnut stain, but that leaves it a little too light while exaggerating the open pores of the oak. 

I also tried filling the grain with Behlen's Pore-O-Pac Grain Filler (Natural color) prior to staining, but that didn't seem to help.

So now I'm looking for suggestions. Any ideas?


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## GeorgeC (Jul 30, 2008)

Personally I think it is impossible. However, it will be very interesting to read the answers here.

G


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## Daren (Oct 14, 2006)

El Zagna said:


> So now I'm looking for suggestions. Any ideas?


Not what you want to hear...but replace the oak ones with walnut ones (or paint them all white :huh. That's my $.02.


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## knotscott (Nov 8, 2007)

Paint is the best method I know of. :thumbdown: It'll nearly impossible to get those two woods to look alike.


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## El Zagna (Dec 9, 2008)

Gah! Well, OK. At least I won't spend any more time trying to do the impossible. 

Since this is an historic house (Hammond House, Calvert, Texas), I want to follow the proper standards for restoration which frowns on painting them or replacing them. 

I haven't yet identified all the balusters that are oak, so once I do that a pattern may emerge that will tell some story about the place. Either way, I'll probably just stain the oak to get it as close to walnut as I can and "celebrate" the difference.


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## Daren (Oct 14, 2006)

El Zagna said:


> Since this is an historic house (Hammond House, Calvert, Texas), I want to follow the proper standards for restoration which frowns on painting them or replacing them.



I checked out that link, looks like a fun job :yes:. The site has the house well documented. I liked the page with the original architectural specs for the build. Here is a quote calling out walnut for the newl and balusters.

*"Stairs*

_There will be one flight of platform stairs in main hall as shown, step 3' (6" in length 1 1/8 thick hard pine risers 7/8 hard pine steps and risers tongued and glued together and housed into wall string steps to receive a returned slated noseing steps to be supported on three strong carriages, wall string 1 3/8 thick, face string 9/8 thick, surmount the steps with a 2 x 4 inch walnut rail (newd??) 9" inches in diameter of a neat design baulesters1¾ inch in drain all walnut thoroughly seasoned for the position of the stairs refer to the plans."_


It's funny to read "thoroughly seasoned" referring to wood in the specs of a build.


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## bradnailer (Nov 11, 2008)

You could also finish all of it with Polyshades which is a tinted polyurethane. You'll get some darkening but it will hide most of the differences in the grain structure.


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## GeorgeC (Jul 30, 2008)

I would think that if this is a true restoration of a historic building that the owners would want the work done so that the structure is repaired to the original specifications. That would include replacing the repairs that were previously accomplished with substitute woods.

G


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