Black Walnut Getting Lighter With Age?

[Darius Ferlas]

I just came across a few site where they mention that black walnut will get lighter, or bleach with age. I'm a newbie to finer woodworking so this is kinda surprising to me.

Does anybody know more about that? To what degree and speed the "bleaching" would occur? Any samples some of the Creekers would be abole to point me to?

Thanks.

[Gene Howe]

No samples from here but, I've had several large pieces stored in my shed, some for 9 years. I have noticed that a few have lightened but, not a lot. When planed, the underlying material is dark.
I've made quite a few furniture pieces for our home and, none have lightened after finish was applied.
One caveat. All my walnut is in the rough and is air dried. In 30 years, I've never had to buy kiln dried so, I don't know how it would react with time.

[David DeCristoforo]

Walnut will get a bit lighter with age if it is kept in a dark place. But it will bleach like crazy if exposed to sunlight. It' kind of like the opposite of cherry. So don't keep your walnut sitting around in front of south facing windows! UV blockers in the finish will slow but not stop the fading

[Darius Ferlas]

Thank you both for the answers.

I managed to find a sample (http://www.woodweb.com/knowledge_base/ColorMatching_Aged_Walnut.html). Indeed, it seems to be heading towards the color of cherry. Actually, I like the effect, although I appreciate the suggestion to use UV blockers to slow the process.

[Mark Singer]

Ultra violet light will lighten walnut to a more amber shade. Wenge lightens also. Mahogany darkens. Paduk looses its red and goes dark brown. Most wood change color a fair amount

[Randy Walker]

I have a fair amount of black walnut. Some about 13 years old kiln dried, and a couple of very special 150 year old slabs of old growth that were stored in a barn until the farm was auctioned 8 years ago and came into my shop. All have held thier color nicely but the 150 year old stuff is a deep rich dark chocolate brown, while the kiln dried stuff is more weak coffee color. They are all stored in my temp. controled shop.http://www.sawmillcreek.org/images/icons/icon10.gif

[Frank Drew]

All the older walnut furniture I've seen has become more copper or copper gold than when it's freshly planed.

[John Keeton]

For what it is worth, here are some pics of a scrap of freshly planed walnut (air dried) against a 20 year old clock case finished with Danish Oil (no stain), and against a nightstand (pic with drawer pull) that is 7 years old, and a bed that is 1 year old. Both the nightstand and the bed were stained with a warm cherry to blend out some veneered plywood, and wipe on poly.

The clock has been exposed to light more than the nightstands, but you can still see a good deal of color change between the bed and nightstands and they were finished exactly the same way.

I used the same scrap in all pics as I figured the lighting would cause some perceived change - and it did. The pic with the bed looks more brown and less of the purple on the scrap.

[Steve Griffin]

My once beautiful walnut kitchen is looking more faded and washed out every year.

Especially at high altitude of 6200', how wood ages is something I'm paying more attention to.

All woods, including cherry and mahogany, will fade in to ugly mushy amber if they get too much direct sun.

For indirect sun or brief periods of direct sun, here's how I rate the woods ability to hold color and keep looking good:

From Best to worst:

Cherry (will darken)
Fir (darken and gain orange tones)
Mahogany (will darken or at least hold it's own)
Oak (White oak might be better, but I'm not sure)
Pine/hemlock (Nice golden patina)
Maple
Birch
black walnut (I might need to paint my walnut kitchen someday....)
hickory (sadly the lights and darks fade together and grain patterns wash away, but it takes stain well)
Alder. (alder absolutely needs stain around here if you don't want it to look like pine wood putty in a few years)

-Steve

[Jim Becker]

Yes, black walnut gets lighter with age. Air-dried walnut becomes a really wonderful golden brown. I don't know what kiln dried ends up as since I never use it...personal preference around walnut.

[george wilson]

I don't want to start an argument,but let me relate this to all of you; For many years there was a mahogany candlestand in the sunny bay window of a shop in Colonial Williamsburg. It had been made by the cabinet shop. That candlestand turned as blonde as avidore (sp?). It looked like new maple from across the street.

[David Keller NC]

I wrote an article on this subject for the 2008 Journal of American Period Furniture (SAPFM's yearly publication). The purpose of the article was to show how direct UV exposure (in this case, via the sun) could accelerate the natural oxidation of wood to make it look a bit less like "fresh from the shop".

Here are some pics - half of the sample was wrapped in aluminum foil, and the whole thing exposed to sunlight for a total of about 30 hours.

The pictures are, from left to right, Poplar, Cypress, Eastern White Pine, Mahogany and Walnut

[David Keller NC]

Here are two more pictures. These final two are, from left to right, Curly Maple and American Cherry

[Rick Steverson]

David, just for the record, the left side of the samples were covered with foil? Got to be carefully with us newbies!

[David Keller NC]

Rick - Yes, apologies for being less than clear on that point. The article has more info, including pictures of the samples as finished with linseed oil and shellac, but the photos above are a decent summary of the results.

[John Keeton]

Excellent pics David! Some interesting effects on woods that I do not customarily use. Thanks!

[David Keller NC]

You're welcome. As some may surmise, my choice of woods closely follows what was used as primary and secondary woods in most 18th Century American furniture. I may well do further experiments with oak (red and white) and some less-common secondary woods like white cedar (if I can find any, that is!).

One thing that might be of interest to folks is that UV exposure completely erased the strong contrast between Poplar heartwood and sapwood. Moreover, the sun exposure gets rid of the ghastly green color that's often found in this wood. Potentially, one could do an entire piece out of poplar, and get a pleasing brown/yellow tone out of the whole thing, regardless of the starting color.

One other note - eastern white pine shows a really strong reaction to sunlight, and in my opinion, is a good way to get that "pumpkin pine" color that apparently a lot of people want. The real advantage here is that there's no risk of blotching as with a stain, and the color is permanent - no fading as with aniline dyes.

Attached is a picture of a cabinet I made out of Eastern White Pine, and exposed to sunlight. One of the pictures is the shadow of a hinge on the cabinet, which gives you some idea of the degree of color change.

[John Keeton]

I have done a lot of rehab on old residential units over the years, and run into a lot of poplar that has been exposed. As you say, it really evens out to a very pleasing color. Never thought about the pumpkin pine color, but your example really shows that.

David, I hate to drift off topic, but what are the rail/stile dimensions on the cabinet? It is very pleasing in proportion. The raised panel appears to have different vertical/horizontal "raised" dimensions as well.

[Rick Steverson]

Interesting information. My reaction to your photos was exactly what you're suggesting: it appeared to be the same as if the wood was stained.

Will look into the UV exposure of poplar. At times, I've combed the bin at my building supply stores looking for poplar that wasn't heavily green without success. Next time, I'll give it a try. 2-3 days of exposure to Florida sunshine to take out the green streaks in an otherwise good board, that I could do.

[David Keller NC]

"David, I hate to drift off topic, but what are the rail/stile dimensions on the cabinet? It is very pleasing in proportion. The raised panel appears to have different vertical/horizontal "raised" dimensions as well."

Thank you for the kind comments, I've had a couple of others comment on the proportions as well. Unfortunately, I really can't tell you. I almost never build anything from the woodworker's traditional plan and cut list. Generally, it's just a rough sketch on a piece of typing paper, and I often adjust dimensions (though not proportions) based on the lumber I have, any defects in that lumber, and changes based on keeping the pieces to one board.

This cabinet was given to my brother and his family for Christmas, and so I can't grab a tape measure and answer your question.

However, I can tell you that it's roughly 2-1/2 feet high (including molding), by about 13 inches wide. The door panel does indeed have different widths of bevels on the top/bottom and sides. This was intentional, as well as the wider rail on the bottom of the door. The idea was to use the thinner bevels on the sides of the door panel to accentuate the vertical direction of the cabinet, and the wider door rail at the bottom was intended to give the cabinet the look of stability.

The width of the moldings were about 1/10th of the height of the cabinet, and were made with 18th century molding planes, following profiles of the period. One other comment is that the actual molded part of the moldings was again designed to give the cabinet the look of stability - in this case, a much narrower ogee and fillet on the bottom plinth versus the wider reverse ogee, fillet, and double scotia of the top molding.

[Kevin Davis]

I was wondering if anyone out there has had any experience with some old reclaimed black walnut before. Attached is a picture of some 10"x10"x 10 ft. beams from a circa 1850 cabin. My goal would be to make aSam Maloof like rocker some day and I was thinking it would be neat to make it out of some old black walnut with some history. What should one be looking for in such a beam (outside of nails) if they were to buy it, what would be a fair price per bf, and if I went to resawing the piece into 2" thick planks, any guesses on how much usable wood you could get out of such a piece?

Thanks,

Kevin

[David Keller NC]

Old Walnut is sometimes really nice, because it's ocassionally old-growth, and has very tight growth rings. That said, you may find a good deal of internal checking in the wood that makes a lot of it useless for anything other than firewood. Only way to tell is to re-saw some of it.

"Fair Price" for walnut is extremely sensitive to where you are in the country, what it's condition is, and what kind of grading would be applied to the sawn lumber. FAS graded, steam-kilned walnut goes for as much as $8 a b.f. in NC, particularly if it's large sizes. #2 common goes for about $3.5 a b.f.