Getting the Color

Here is an excerpt from the “Temple Chair” video course. My superstar student Alicia told me she found this very useful, so I wanted to share it while reminding you that the sale is ending on 1/31/26.

I’ve been getting lots of chair work done lately and it’s been an invigorating time. I’ve missed the rhythm of finishing pieces. Here are a few that I’ve gotten together lately

There are three different finishes that I’m doing on these and I thought I’d detail them. The Helix chair on the left is getting some attention to the color (raw oil and fuming) and then clear coated, the Modern Rocker is getting clear coated and the C arm will be painted.

I’ll start with the Helix. This chair has all white oak parts and a butternut seat. By the way, I lied, it’s not a single piece seat, it’s a glue up. I suppose this could be a humble brag “it’s so good, I couldn’t even tell” but I think it’s more likely that my powers of observations are just slipping. Here’s the chair prior to any finishing.

It’s pretty light. I decided to soak the chair in 1/2 and 1/2 from the Real Milk Paint Company. This is 1/2 pure tung oil and 1/2 citrus solvent. I learned while finishing the white oak floors in my house that soaking with this stuff radically increased the depth and variety of color over time. In the areas of my house where I simply coated raw oak with Waterlox, the color has stayed a more sallow tan, whereas in the other areas, it’s got a rich variety of colors I like much better. The one issue is dry time. The company suggests soaking floors repeatedly all day, which means you have to wait a month of drying before you can topcoat. In this case, I only soaked it once and let is sit for a while before wiping down. I let it dry for a week before I took the next steps.