This is a companion video to this blog post on our website, with more discussion and photos of the processes in this video:
www.woodworkerssource.com/blog/wood-finishing/how-…
Tropical walnut is a nice hardwood that's closely related to the American black walnut that you might be more familiar with. In woodworking, this wood has a rather beautiful dark brown color that's actually more consistent than the color you get in American black walnut. It also has more straight grain rather than the curls, swirls and irregularities in American black walnut. It's not that one is better than the other -- they both have their own characteristics and they're both very enjoyable woods. Alas, this video is about Tropical Walnut, though. So check it out. There's information here about how well it machines and over half of this video is dedicated to several techniques for applying a fantastic clear/natural finish. In short, any basic protective finish looks really nice. But you can make that finish even better by filling the grain first. There are two grain filling techniques demonstrated in this video.
Woodworkers Source