types of walnut?

[sunnybob]

Ok , experts ready?
I've just bought the largest piece of walnut I have ever owned. Only 1 plank so dont get too excited!

I'm confused, is it walnut, or black walnut? or walnut black? or several other variations I have seen online.
Is all walnut black seems to be my main question.

 

[Harbo]

As far as I know there's American Black Walnut and English (and possibly European?)
English is brown and paler than AWB as this picture shows:

Rod

 

[paulm]

Those are stunning Rod, forgot you had them tucked away !

 

[paulm]

Another example of UK grown walnut

 

[sunnybob]

Hmm, looks like I have black walnut. Its definitely darker than the bowl. I would say very close to the second saw from the top.

It responded extremely well to being routered. just masses of granules like mini coco pops. Shone very quickly with minimal sandpapering too.
I think I may well be using this more often in the future.

 

[Woody2Shoes]

Hi - there are two main species of walnut (both will grow happily in the UK and the USA). The black walnut Juglans Nigra and the English/Persian walnut Juglans Regia (the butternut is also a member of the walnut family). English walnut is usually paler and more interesting to look at (imho!). Black walnut timber is often steamed, as is beech, I presume this makes it less subject to checking/warping in use. Cheers, W2S

 

[YorkshireMartin]

Black walnut is my favourite to work with although I do find it very brittle at times. It's noticeable, particularly when morticing by hand. Edges can be easily damaged and any finished pieces most definitely need careful easing. Keeping on top of tool sharpness is a must when working it, imo. I know thats best practice anyway, but I make doubly sure with walnut.

That small issue aside, it accepts finishes readily, looks beautiful and is very strong. My only gripe with it is that its quite hard to select decent boards, as it's so dark in colour. For example, I'm just having a look under the skin of a large board I picked up a year ago. Found a significant area of dense reversing grain. It's usable of course, but perhaps not for all applications.

I've yet to have the pleasure of working with English, but it's on my list!

 

[YorkshireMartin]

Another example of UK grown walnut

And what a lovely example it is, too. =D>

 

[Doug B]

Close up of English Walnut quite figured & brown

Also tends to be quite a lot of sapwood

 

[Harbo]

Lovely looking bowl Paul.

Rod

 

[Jake]

Black walnut timber is often steamed, as is beech, I presume this makes it less subject to checking/warping in use. Cheers, W2S

For ABW I think the purpose is much more cynically to dye the sapwood with 'exudates' from the heartwood - temporarily for sale at least.

 

[custard]

Ok , experts ready?
I've just bought the largest piece of walnut I have ever owned. Only 1 plank so dont get too excited!

I'm confused, is it walnut, or black walnut? or walnut black? or several other variations I have seen online.
Is all walnut black seems to be my main question.

Bob, how did you acquire it? If you bought it square edged in a local commercial timber yard, and if the colour variation between sapwood and heartwood is fairly muted, then in all probability it's American Black Walnut. ABW dominates the commercial Walnut market as it's grown and processed on an industrial scale in the US and exported all over the world, it's almost always steamed during kilning which reduces the colour difference between sap and heartwood which in turn increases the yield.

However, English/European Walnut is the tree that grows the nuts, so if you have commercial Walnut orchards in Cyprus then that opens up another possibility. If you're buying waney edged Walnut boards with a distinct colour difference between sap and heartwood then that tips the likelihood towards English/European Walnut.

They're both wonderful timbers, but they both fade quite badly in south facing rooms. IMO steamed American Black Walnut fades particularly badly.

ABW is the block of wood in the bottom right. The bottom half was shielded from the sunlight, the top half had two months under a south facing window in the UK. The right hand side had a UV protection finish, the left hand side is unfinished.

 

[woodbrains]

Hello,

What is the UV protection you use, advise for such timber, Custard? Will it also have an effect on keeping very blonde woods white, rather than becoming increasingly yellow?

Many thanks,

Mike.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

:lol: Who's to be the first to post pictures of Claro Walnut, then?

 

[custard]

I did quite a few different tests, different finishes on different timbers. There are some quite expensive spray only finishes that offer some limited potential, but by and large they're all compromised in one way or another. For example some of the most obvious UV protection candidates are the spar varnishes designed to withstand tropical sun, problem is they're only designed to last for about two years before being re-applied and therefore have UV barriers that although initially effective will break down quite quickly, so not very practical for furniture.

The Osmo UV finish is probably the best of a mediocre bunch, but the real answer is to pick the right timber for sunny locations in south facing rooms. So that might mean Oak, Chestnut, Holly, Rosewood, Yew, Mahogany, Cherry or indeed most of the fruitwoods. Avoid steamed ABW and Sycamore. Steamed ABW goes a flat, muddy brown and Sycamore ends up a nasty shade of tangerine! Unsteamed ABW (which is only available from about half a dozen specialist yards in the UK), English Walnut, Ash, and Elm are somewhere in the middle.

 

[custard]

:lol: Who's to be the first to post pictures of Claro Walnut, then?

Left to right, rippled unsteamed ABW, unsteamed ABW, rippled English Walnut, rippled Claro Walnut.

Here's a close up of the Claro Walnut board,

It's pretty good stuff and I don't have all that much, so those boards will be waiting for an extra special project to come along!

 

[woodbrains]

I did quite a few different tests, different finishes on different timbers. There are some quite expensive spray only finishes that offer some limited potential, but by and large they're all compromised in one way or another. For example some of the most obvious UV protection candidates are the spar varnishes designed to withstand tropical sun, problem is they're only designed to last for about two years before being re-applied and therefore have UV barriers that although initially effective will break down quite quickly, so not very practical for furniture.

The Osmo UV finish is probably the best of a mediocre bunch, but the real answer is to pick the right timber for sunny locations in south facing rooms. So that might mean Oak, Chestnut, Holly, Rosewood, Yew, Mahogany, Cherry or indeed most of the fruitwoods. Avoid steamed ABW and Sycamore. Steamed ABW goes a flat, muddy brown and Sycamore ends up a nasty shade of tangerine! Unsteamed ABW (which is only available from about half a dozen specialist yards in the UK), English Walnut, Ash, and Elm are somewhere in the middle.

Hello,

Many thanks for your reply, I was not confident about the success of these finishes, but hoping against hope you might have discovered something wonderful! TBH it wasn't saving the colour from south facing rooms as such but rather trying to give more longevity to the colour in general. Even in dim North facing rooms, eventually the wood becomes yellower and muddier, and since I hope my furniture will last a few decades at least, I'd like to try and keep them as good as possible. I'm old enough now to have seen some pieces I built when I first started, look a bit 'false tanned'!

Regarding Claro walnut, not a species in itself, but Euro walnut grafted onto American walnut rootstock, IIRC. Though this might be a sham version of Californian grown black walnut, which is very rare now. When I was at The College Of The Redwoods, one of the tutors there made a dining table of the stuff, it was truly gorgeous.
Mike.

 

[custard]

Regarding Claro walnut, not a species in itself, but Euro walnut grafted onto American walnut rootstock, IIRC. Though this might be a sham version of Californian grown black walnut, which is very rare now. When I was at The College Of The Redwoods, one of the tutors there made a dining table of the stuff, it was truly gorgeous.
Mike.

I don't think that's true Mike, what I understand is that Claro is a separate species but that there's some debate amongst botanists if Claro and Californian Walnut are separate species or the same tree grown under different conditions.

Incidentally, I used to work in California and in a previous post put forward the theory that a lot of the stuff sold as Claro could in fact be nut bearing English Walnut grafted onto Black Walnut rootstock for commercial orchard use, it was just a theory though based on seeing a lot of stuff billed as Claro that seemed to me just particularly wild grained English Walnut.

 

[woodbrains]

Regarding Claro walnut, not a species in itself, but Euro walnut grafted onto American walnut rootstock, IIRC. Though this might be a sham version of Californian grown black walnut, which is very rare now. When I was at The College Of The Redwoods, one of the tutors there made a dining table of the stuff, it was truly gorgeous.
Mike.

I don't think that's true Mike, what I understand is that Claro is a separate species but that there's some debate amongst botanists if Claro and Californian Walnut are separate species or the same tree grown under different conditions.

Incidentally, I used to work in California and in a previous post put forward the theory that a lot of the stuff sold as Claro could in fact be nut bearing English Walnut grafted onto Black Walnut rootstock for commercial orchard use, it was just a theory though based on seeing a lot of stuff billed as Claro that seemed to me just particularly wild grained English Walnut.

Hello,

Ahh, I was half remembering the bit about the debate about the walnut being just Californian grown black walnut or otherwise. If it is not a separate species, it certainly is special enough to be given its own distinguishing name. What is certainly true, there is grafting of nut bearing walnut onto black walnut rootstock, and the timber gets sold, as what, I suppose it depends on the merchant. :wink:

Mike.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I have just looked briefly at The Woodbook by Romeyn Beck Hough ISBN 978-3-8228-3818-1 (if anyone's interested ) a stunning book of N. American timbers. I cannot find (at least quickly) a reference to Claro, so I suspect it is a product of something rather than a species or cultivar. This tends toward my often faulty memory, which is that it is a product of the grafted tree used in the farming of walnuts (often in California) which iirc is an English walnut on a Californian walnut rootstock, the wild grain being the joint of the two.