Walnut Sub.

[Deane Allinson]

I am going to be making quite a few display tables for a retail store.They have spec’d a reconstituted walnut veneer from Italy, that they are using on the wallsand table tops. There budget won’t allow real walnut for the table legs, skirtsand top edges. The designs call for 3” of solid wood edging on the table tops.I usually sand the hardwood flush to theveneer face with a stroke sander (spooky, but that’s another story). The veneeris dyed and looks pretty much like “real walnut”.
What wood species can I use for the legs and skirts that I canstain or tone to match or at least be near enough to the untrained eye? The blendingof the hardwood & veneer tops is also a little baffling without a quirk.
Pecan? A light colored African mahogany? I need to keep tothe $3.50 bd.ft. range, our walnut is running over $7.50 bd.ft.
Maybe this is a finishing question but I thought that Iwould start here.

[Prashun Patel]

Poplar, birch, alder can all be made to match the color. The problem is that walnut does have color variation that's a little tricky to mimic.

Here are a couple more options:

For the aprons, use seconds: The untrained eye is IMHO more likely to accept sapwood and knots than dyed-to-match.
For the legs, use shorts and glue them up: I've gotten 4/4 walnut stock in the 5 ft range for a song. It's quite possible to glue up edge grain walnut seamlessly.
Watch craigslist. Private sellers often sell at a deep discount because they don't sell officially graded lumber.

[Mel Fulks]

I've seen soft maple used in that circumstance ,and even poplar if you can get enough of the white (as opposed to green).Never heard any complaints on lack of pores. I consider Africa "mahogany" hard to work with and not a good ddeal considering actual yield. I agree they need a quirk, the designers just don't know how much work that is.

[Jeff Duncan]

Do they have enough veneer left over to do the legs and skirts? That would be my first thought! Second though would be to see if you can find a lesser grade of walnut that you can work around the knots and make skins to laminate onto a solid core of poplar or whatever you have handy for the legs and aprons. You'll have more labor involved so you have to factor that in, but you'll use a lot less walnut than making it up out of solid;) As for staining other woods to match....if you don't already know how to do it I'd be careful here as it can be tricky. You'll want to do some test runs first to see how it goes:o

FWIW walnut is much cheaper in the Northeast, I paid $5.17 last week....are you buying wholesale? If not your going to want to as $7+ for walnut is $$$$:(

good luck,
JeffD

[Mel Fulks]

Don't forget the "walnut" they have is fake. My experience on jobs for stores is they want uniformity and are picky about color and usually need to approve a color sample. Heavily toned finish (paint IMO) is accepted. Knots ,and blemishes are not accepted ,except at western theme steak houses...