A question about walnut

[Ken Loy]

I picked up some walnut logs from someone who cut them from their property. I'm in the Washington DC area.

I've been surprised by the color of locally sourced walnut. The heartwood has purple and yellows in them, which has surprised me. The sapwood is creamy white. I've always thought of walnut as being just brown in color. I've turned claro walnut and it's a really pretty, consistent brown.

Is the purple/yellow color typical of mid-Atlantic walnut? How do you like to finish it, Do you apply a brown-colored stain or do you like the natural purple/yellow?

 

[Phil Hamel]

Mine had brilliant yellow in it when wet but quickly turned to regular after drying.

 

[Gabriel Hoff]

Yes, that is normal around here. I have found stunning pieces with a lot of purple and yellow, way better then the brown stuff! The older the tree, the better color I have found. It only is on freshly cut wood.

 

[Lyle Jamieson]

The purple, yellow, green colors will dissipate when dried and over time it will all be brown. The white will also fade over time to a tan or even disappear to brown but takes some years to change. If you want to keep the white contrast saturate it with lemon juice after it is turned. The lemon juice will not keep it pure white but will slow the fade to brown and keep some contrasting color.

 

[Sam Fleisher]

Here's a piece of central Illinois walnut. It was a lot lighter overall before I used Danish oil on it. I remember having some really purple walnut many years ago in industrial arts class but didn't think anything of it. Wonder if it came from your area.

Not a very helpful post here I know.

 

[Ken Loy]

Does the sap wood shrink in the same way as the heartwood? Can I keep a good amount of sapwood in the final bowl or will it warp/shrink differently from the heartwood? Is it considerably softer?

 

[hockenbery]

Does the sap wood shrink in the same way as the heartwood? Can I keep a good amount of sapwood in the final bowl or will it warp/shrink differently from the heartwood? Is it considerably softer?

Black walnut has a great shrinkage ratio of 5.5 percent (radial) to 7.8 percent (tangential)
Not much distortion.
A 10” bowl and a 12” diameter hollow form with lots of sapwood
.

The sapwood in the bowl has turned brownish. The white in the HF has been bleached.

 

[Leo Van Der Loo]

Black Walnut grows with a light color sapwood that will turn into a darker color by leaching and light influence.
The leaching starts almost right away when the tree is cut, but you can save that light color if you cut it off the log, and you then need to dry the wood quickly. (without splitting)

This is one with just a sliver of dark wood, the light color becomes more of a darker color, it does change over time like all wood does.

I have done just a couple, but the light sapwood is nothing to write home about, the dark color is much nicer IMO.

The sapwood turns like the heart wood, it is equal to the darker heartwood I that regard, I never noticed a difference in turning it.

The loggers that sell black Walnut do not like the light sapwood, they want to sell the dark Walnut, so they steam the wood and the sapwood will turn dark like the rest of the log, taking some of the color from the log and the log will loose the color variances that it had before.

Here is one haul of 4 I got of Black Walnut logs, I was allowed to take all the wood I wanted, it was out of a recent cut gulley of veneer quality logs the owner had sold, what I did not take became firewood.

You can see the sapwood, and the amount does not change as the tree gets larger, so a very large tree has little sapwood in comparison to a small tree.


At the border of light to dark wood you can find different colors, of course not in steamed or ponded wood, where it all becomes similar brown or close to the same.


So I rather see the natural coloration of the Walnut wood, though all of that does get less as time goes by, but still stays nicer than the muddy brown of the steamed wood imo.

 

[Richard Coers]

Fresh cut walnut is green until it oxidizes. It's one of the rare woods that gets lighter with years of aging. I would not call the color as brown.

 

[Leo Van Der Loo]

Fresh cut walnut is green until it oxidizes. It's one of the rare woods that gets lighter with years of aging. I would not call the color as brown.

I have cut enough Black Walnut fresh, and it never was green (color) certainly closer to brown, and yes the dark heartwood will get lighter.

here is a fresh cut log, less than 2 hrs from cutting them up, as carrying the logs out of that steep gulley was pretty hard to do, so cutting them smaller did help.



This bowl in the picture below sat for a long time in our hall, that is facing north, which is light but without direct sun shining in, it did get quite a bit lighter in the 20 years or so.

And no I have no picture from when it was new, so no comparing from new to older.

 

[Kent Reisdorph]

Does the sap wood shrink in the same way as the heartwood? Can I keep a good amount of sapwood in the final bowl or will it warp/shrink differently from the heartwood? Is it considerably softer?

There is effectively no difference between the heartwood and the sapwood. This bowl was turned from a freshly cut walnut tree.

 

[Ken Loy]

All interesting stuff! I didn't realize walnut actually got lighter over time.

Here's a picture of one of the roughly turned blanks and it shows the yellow and a little bit of the purple.



And this is a bowl I previously turned. I applied some walnut-colored gel stain to cover over the purples in the heartwood. I like what it did to the heartwood, but it really made the sapwood look "muddy".



I have a question on bleaching: I presume that it's done on the finally turned bowl during sanding/finishing and not the roughly turned blanks. Do you bleach the entire bowl, or apply it to just the sapwood?

 

[Ken Loy]

There is effectively no difference between the heartwood and the sapwood. This bowl was turned from a freshly cut walnut tree.

View attachment 66061

Beautiful! You nailed the symmetry of the growth rings!

 

[Ross Berning]

Ken, I’ve got a walnut log here in Wisconsin that has the exact variation in your picture. As others have said it’ll turn brown once exposed.

 

[Richard Coers]

I have cut enough Black Walnut fresh, and it never was green (color) certainly closer to brown, and yes the dark heartwood will get lighter.

here is a fresh cut log, less than 2 hrs from cutting them up, as carrying the logs out of that steep gulley was pretty hard to do, so cutting them smaller did help.

View attachment 66052

This bowl in the picture below sat for a long time in our hall, that is facing north, which is light but without direct sun shining in, it did get quite a bit lighter in the 20 years or so.

And no I have no picture from when it was new, so no comparing from new to older.
View attachment 66051

I owned a sawmill for 3 years. Every walnut was green and turned brownish within minutes when exposed to air.

 

[Leo Van Der Loo]

I owned a sawmill for 3 years. Every walnut was green and turned brownish within minutes when exposed to air.

I guess I wasn't quick enough looking, or you have different air/Walnut as I have never seen green coloured Walnut and then changed minutes later 😄

 

[Don Wattenhofer]

I guess I wasn't quick enough looking, or you have different air/Walnut as I have never seen green coloured Walnut and then changed minutes later 😄

I too have a saw mill, still do going on 15 years and have acquired several live walnut trees then milled them, but like Leo said I have never seen any green. The trees that I cut all came from southeast Minnesota at the north western tip of what was once known as the big woods that also went thru Illinois.

 

[hockenbery]

I have occasionally seen a little purple in fresh cut walnut.

 

[Ross Berning]

Just cut this blank a few minutes ago here in south central Wisconsin. I’ll check on how it changes

 

[Larry Copas]

I've been running a sawmill for 30 years now and probably 70% of what I saw is walnut. Fresh sawn logs show lots of red, purple, yellow, and I guess maybe a green cast.

I do see a true green at times but it's always in "U" shaped crotches and in the sapwood. Unfortunately it will turn white within a few minutes. Maybe see it in one out of every 100 crotches I saw.



Different crotch after the green has faded.


Most commercially sawn walnut is steamed. The steaming tones down the heartwood into a uniform (boring) brown and also turns the sapwood a lighter brown.

I love all the vibrant colors of non-steamed walnut and do my best to make that happen. I like to saw logs as soon as possible after felling than load them in my dry kiln and skip air drying. When in the kiln I dry the wood as fast as it will let me without degrade. I'm able to keep all those vibrant colors along with the bright white of the sapwood.

 

[Ross Berning]

After about an hour and a half there are subtle changes. 12 hours later and it’s pretty much all brown.

Note: these are photos of the off cut from the same blank, so essentially the same wood as the first picture. The blank itself is now a rough turned bowl. 😃

 

[robo hippy]

It has been a long time since I turned any walnut. I have seen greens, reds, purples, oranges, and yellows. Don't know if the colors stayed or not. Don't turn it any more, sneezes and itches....

robo hippy

 

[Kent Reisdorph]

My walnuts tend to have a green tint when wet.

No comments from the peanut gallery.

 

[William Moschler]

When dried commercially in a kiln walnut is generally "steamed" to even out the color. Walnut reacts to sunlight fairly strongly in relation to color.

 

[David Wyke]

I’ve turned a lot of black walnut and most has been dark brown to black. I’ve had some with a purple tint in the beginning but turns brown once dry. The mineral content of the soil has a lot to do with the contrasting color of walnut.
I always just add walnut oil or Danish oil to walnut, love the natural color.

 

[Don Wattenhofer]

When dried commercially in a kiln walnut is generally "steamed" to even out the color. Walnut reacts to sunlight fairly strongly in relation to color.

It has been my experience that the steamed sapwood color is very shallow and likely to be eliminated simply by planning.

 

[Leo Van Der Loo]

Same here David, I don't try to change the colors of wood, I love the natural color and the changes that occur over time, like from a bright yellow Mulberry to a dark coffee brown just by the natural process.