Cypress for Furniture.

[WDH]

If you do use pure tung oil, after applying the tung oil in the #of coats to your satisfaction, be sure and let it cure for about 30 days before topcoating it with varnish. 

[Larry]

All oil finishes impart some amount of yellow to the wood ranging from a little to a lot.  To my eye its great on walnut, oak, and other darker woods.  Not so good on maple if your trying to keep it white.

My standard finish for table tops that are actually used has been Waterlox Gloss for years.  Its tough and easy to re-finish if that time ever comes.  The downside is its expensive and unused finish likes to jell in the can.  Takes a few hours to cure enough to not pick up dust particles.

I've been finishing a few pieces with Minwax fast dry poly and it shows great promise.  I've been using it as a wipe on.  Jury is still out on how tough it is, but I like the fact that its cheap and readily available.

Whatever you decide on, try it on a test piece first.

[LaneC]

   Thanks Gents. I may try a little of that finish you were talking about and the tongue oil. Yep, I may try a little of that tongue oil on one of the ends. the good thing about it, I will have quite a few feet to try different ones on, because I am going to have to cut 2 ends off of each board, so that will give me a total of 8 sides to experiment with . I will definitely try the waterlox, and the tongue oil (pure). Thanks a bunch for the advice.

[WDH]

I use the fast drying Minwax Satin Poly and really like it.  I have use it on most of my furniture projects.  For benches, I use 100% pure tung oil. 

[LaneC]

  I will try that one too on another side. Thanks. I hope I can get samples :D. Only a few sides left

[ljmathias]

Good cypress is fascinating to work with. Managed to scrounge some 12X12 and 15X15 post cut-offs ranging from 4-5' in length. Cut them into 1 1/2 or 2" slabs on the saw mill, some cut into 3-4" wide for legs and support pieces. Planed, sanded, assembled with really long screws (found some 4" at Lowes and have some 6" Timberloc I think they are). Screwed together but no glue they are staying pretty solid as tables and benches.

Lot of this furniture is for use in a pub so I finished with three coats of polyurethane spar varnish- tough and water resistant. Some of the benches sit outside and get wet often but seem to be holding up real well. Table and benches inside look great.

Only problem I've noticed with the spar varnish is a little bit of yellowing of the almost pure white parts of the cypress- small price to pay for the ease of application and durability.

One interesting thing I've been doing is gluing up table tops using a combination of cypress with darker or stained wood. Had a 2" slab of Spanish cedar that was uniform in color and beautiful fine grained. Put that in the middle between two 15" wide slabs of cypress and the contrast is fantastic. Also did this with some red oak I'd had laying around (air drying if you ask). Stained it dark walnut and that looked even prettier. PITA to sand after assembly as that took off some of the stained part and I had to re-apply with a tiny brush. Oh, well, live and learn.

LJ

[caveman]

A friend of ours who owns a tree service has given John and me quite a few nice logs over the years.  To let him and his wife know that we appreciate his generosity, we offered to make them a table.  They wanted a picnic table.  This is what we came up with.  It is a little over 10' long and about 43" wide so we decided not to add integral benches.
Most recently, he gave us some really nice cedar but he was cool with us building the table out of cypress.


 

We used my old radial arm saw with a wobbly dado blade to cut the lap joints on the legs.  It did a good job on that task.  I think I'll continue to leave a dado blade on that machine until I need it for another purpose.

[SwampDonkey]

Awesome looking picnic table. Looks nice and solid for the sway factor. ;D

[WDH]

Very well done!

[firefighter ontheside]

Very nice table.  I love cypress.  My whole first floor of my house is cypress flooring.  I wouldn't do it again.  It's too soft for high traffic areas, but I didn't know that 20 years ago.  I have built my platform bed with large drawers out of cypress.  My headboard is made from cypress.  Much of the trim in my house is made from the left over cypress flooring.  

[caveman]

This was a fun little project.  It did not take a lot of time build, which is a good thing as we don't have a lot to spare right now.  We have another tree guy we feel pretty indebted to so we may be doing something for him in the not so distant future.

Cypress is a beautiful wood.  A former student and his dad just bought a bandsaw sawmill that will cut 8' between the guides and they have gotten their permits and barge for pulling sinker logs.  They should be sawing soon.  The family sold their very successful strawberry, squash and fruit tree farm a few years ago (Kathleen, Fl) and most of their clan moved up to the Perry, Fl. area.  I expect to see some incredible cypress from them pretty soon.

[WDH]

There used to be a big cypress mill in Perry, FL way back in the day.  I bet there are some nice sinkers around that area.