[dutchmanmk3]

All walnuts contain oil. You can quite often draw the oil out to even the finish by quickly wiping it down with acetone prior to finishing. I use alot of oily exotics and this is almost a neccessity. HTH. Marc

[Dan C]

Thanks Marc! I think you are on the track of what I was seeing! As you obviously know, butternut is a type of walnut.

Another thing I noticed, is that when I carved a woodspirit head out of butternut, the wood started to turn a little darker after a few days. At first I thought it was grunge from my hands, even though I had been careful. Then I noticed that the entire head was turning a little darker - pretty evenly - and then I figured it was some reaction of the fresh cut wood to the air or to light. I now think what I was noticing was the oil coming to the surface. It gave the wood a nice color. I'm going to have to try rubbing some acetone on a piece and see what it looks like. Thanks for your answer!

Dan C.

[brian bailey]

I work with butternut / walnut all the time and have never experienced any oil in the wood.

Dan C, I would suspect that the plastic pads on your clamps are the culprit?

I bought the orange plastic slip on pads for my Jorgesen clamps and get a greasy looking spot on the wood after clamping. I believe its something in the plastic, not the wood.

[Dan C]

Brian,

You hit it on the nose! The clamps I was using had orange plastic pads. I tried clamping a piece of butternut with one of these clamps with orange pads, and right next to it, clamped this piece of wood with a metal "U" clamp with no pads - just the metal. I left the wood clamped with both clamps for 2 days.

Sure enough, when I unclamped the wood last night, there was an oily looking spot under the orange plastic pad, and nothing at all under the all-metal clamp pad. So, the orange pads are the culprit! I guess I always thought of these plastic pads as being pretty inert, but it looks like they're not. I know for sure that it wasn't oil or something that had gotten onto the pads. This just hasn't happened with these clamps. They are, and have always been, perfectly clean.

Since I carved this wood away, it wasn't a problem for me, but it could be a real problem under some other circumstances.

Dan C.

[brian bailey]

Dan C,

I frequently carpet tape a small block of basswood to the clamp to act as a pad instead of using the plastic ones.

[wade clark]

Don't eat popcorn while carving!