White Black Walnut

[Steve Demuth]

I'm curious if any of you Sawmill Creek woodworkers have run across Black Walnut colored like the log in the attached pictures? The heartwood is typical, although a bit on the paler side of the spectrum, for about 2" into the log, while the central heartwood is a creamy off-white. This is the from the bole, probably 20' from the ground. The wood in the crown, which branched out just above this piece, have typical, solid, purple-brown heartwood.
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I've seen a lot of variation and different colors in Black Walnut that I've sawed from my place, but I've never before encountered one with such clearly white heartwood, or so strikingly two-toned.

[johnny means]

I would've liked to have seen the tree and what part of the tree it can from.

[Brian Tymchak]

My guess is butternut, which is a close kin to walnut. Although I've not seen a live edge slab of butternut.

Edit: curiosity got to me. googled up images of butternut. Hearne Hardwoods has this gallery (https://www.hearnehardwoods.com/butternut-lumber/) of pics of butternut. There is a pic that looks similar to your slab.

[Jerry Wright]

Butternut is sometimes called "poor man's" walnut because of similarity to walnut in grain, not color. It can be stained to look like walnut. I have milled and routed a lot of it and it is softer, lighter, and prone to fluffiness after milling.

[Steve Demuth]

The tree has an interesting history. It was growing on a steep slope in a stand of old, large White Oak and Hickory, in thin soil. So, not a usual place to find a large walnut tree. The tree was uprooted in a storm nearly 20 years ago, but was hung up in other trees, so remained cocked at an angle with a few roots still in the ground. I would have taken it down and lumbered it then, but I couldn't figure out a safe way to get the tree down. It would have been a challenge for a professional logger with heavy equipment, but it was impossible for me with the equipment I had then. So I left it. After some years, the tree died, and about 4 years ago it came down after the crown had largely deteriorated to only large branches, and one of the trees it was hung in came down in another storm. Along the way, I got better equipment, and of course, in falling, the tree came a considerable distance down the slope. I retired a year ago, and finally had the time to figure out a way to get to the tree, and get pieces of it off the slope. The sapwood is long gone on the log, but the heartwood is still sound.

The tree was a beauty in it's day. About 24' to the first branch, straight, with a narrow and relatively narrow branch angles. Looks from the growth rings to about 80 years old when it died. The short log you see was about 24" in diameter, and came from just below the crown, at the top of the bole.

As for the species, to those suggesting this is a Butternut, not a Black Walnut - that's a good theory, but I'm very confident it's Juglans nigra. I've got hybrid Butternuts growing on the place, and I have true Butternut lumber in my stash that was milled many years ago from around here. All these woods are a golden brown, not purple/brown and white, as is this lumber. And as I said, everything from the base of the crown on up is solid purple/brown and looks like any Black Walnut heartwood. Plus, being a Butternut would not explain the distinct two-color nature of the log. If it were a Butternut, it'd be at least as strange a specimen of that species as it is of Black Walnut.

All in all, I am certain it's just an oddly colored Black Walnut.

[Jim Becker]

Growing conditions including mineral content in the soil can very much affect what an individual tree looks like inside. Other than that central part of the heartwood, that does indeed look like black walnut. So it just could be "that tree" that had to be different...

[Jeff Roltgen]

The tree was uprooted in a storm nearly 20 years ago

This may be the key to the mystery. 20 years of curing with some roots in the ground...
Wouldn't this easily result in a color shift, considering natural fungi and moisture being wicked through a stressed, then eventually dead tree standing for a few years?

[glenn bradley]

Does this count?

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I use a fair amount of walnut and get to see the wide color spectrum. Some is almost purple, some dark chocolate, reddish, light mocha, and some is creamy white.

[Steve Demuth]

Does this count?

I use a fair amount of walnut and get to see the wide color spectrum. Some is almost purple, some dark chocolate, reddish, light mocha, and some is creamy white.

Assuming that is not purple heartwood surrounded by white sapwood (it's hard to tell with the purple mostly in the center, rather than outside of the board) that looks like what I'm sawing right now. I agree that there is enormous variation in Black Walnut color, and I've seen some really spectacular color variation on logs that like this one, weathered outdoors before being sawn. But I'd never seen white heartwood locally, and never seen heartwood that was so dramatically bi-color. Just curious if anyone else had, and where.

[Steve Demuth]

This may be the key to the mystery. 20 years of curing with some roots in the ground...
Wouldn't this easily result in a color shift, considering natural fungi and moisture being wicked through a stressed, then eventually dead tree standing for a few years?

Could be. I've seen many wonderful color effects in heartwood from tree injury left to fester in standing timber. Boxelder is famous for the red that injury can induce in heartwood below a stress point, but I also see it often in Elm, Ash, and Oak. But all of them involve a transition to a darker color in affected heartwood. Don't think I've ever seen heartwood bleached by stress or injury.

Again, I'm just curious about others' experience. The wood will finish beautifully, and I'm already thinking of several projects for it.

[Steve Demuth]

Growing conditions including mineral content in the soil can very much affect what an individual tree looks like inside. Other than that central part of the heartwood, that does indeed look like black walnut. So it just could be "that tree" that had to be different...

Yep. In most places on my farm, Black Walnut is by far the most common native tree, and I see a fair bit of color variation from tree to tree. This is a new one on me, though.

[Jim Becker]

I had a lot of black walnut on our old property...almost all the walnut I've used over the past 23 years was harvested from there. I have some left over from two previous milling sessions over the years and now have some more stacked/stickered and drying from the cutting session right before we finally sold the place. I really love air-dried black walnut. (or KD but unsteamed) The color variation is amazing.

[Steve Demuth]

I really love air-dried black walnut. (or KD but unsteamed) The color variation is amazing.

Likewise. I never kiln dry Walnut. I know a good operator can dry it without too much negative impact, but all the KD Walnut I've ever seen lacks something - I think it is the subtle, year-to-year variation I see in air dried. Somehow it's just a bit homogenized. And wood that has aged in the log to the point where the sapwood is starting or completely incompetent develops some of the best color. I've tried over the years to photograph it, but I can't seem to capture (I am a truly lousy photographer). But, this is a box I built for my wife's wool combing equipment that shows some the goodness, at least:

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Steaming Black Walnut solid lumber is a woodworking sin in most cases, in my mind at least. If you want mud-colored lumber, just buy some birch wood and spray on whatever insipidness you want. I do steam thin black walnut sometimes for bending, as in the basket shown here. I never feel entirely OK about it. It looks ok with the light steaming I need to bend 1/8" wood, but it's still pretty "same."

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[Steve Demuth]

This week I had to get into the stickered walnut I cut from the above "White Black Walnut" earlier this summer. It's no longer white, but has turned into a classic purple-brown walnut, with the line between the formerly white and dark heartwood no longer discernable. I'm not terribly surprised, because the sawdust in the pile from the mill darkened very quickly in the air. But it's a bit of a disappointment - some of the boards had gorgeous marbling from fingers of brown reaching into the lighter wood.

I've seen a lot of variation in Walnut color, but this tree is a completely new phenomenon to me.

[Steve Demuth]

I am refreshing this 2 year old thread, to continue the saga of my "white black walnut story."

Sawn, stickered and air dried, the white or pale portion of this log darkened over time. I noticed it on the cut surfaces within a few days, but as was hinted at in the pictures of the log, it crept into the wood with time. In the last couple of weeks I took some out of the stickered pile to make a breadbox for my wife. It's now a rich walnut color through and through. Here's what the finished version looks like. All of this came from the top two boards that came off the top of the log as shown in the original pictures in the thread above.

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[Cameron Wood]

That's wild! I've heard of burying wood to age and improve the color, but you wouldn't expect it to change while stickered.

Nice breadbox.

[John TenEyck]

Nor would I have expected that. I've seen the sapwood in a log slowly turn brown over many months such that when the log finally is milled the sapwood looks very much the same color as the heartwood. But that happens in the log. I've never seen that happen, or the reverse like you have, after the log was milled into lumber. Very interesting indeed.

John

[Richard Coers]

That's wild! I've heard of burying wood to age and improve the color, but you wouldn't expect it to change while stickered.

Nice breadbox.
Not at all uncommon. Most really dark walnut comes off the log with a green color. Cherry starts out about the color of salmon or lighter, purple heart comes off the log a dull gray or brown.....

[Lee Schierer]

I believe English walnut is also lighter colored than black walnut.

Here is English walnut compared to black walnut and butternut
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[John TenEyck]

I believe English walnut is also lighter colored than black walnut.

Here is English walnut compared to black walnut and butternut
515689515690

Yes, English walnut is lighter overall than black walnut, but there's no mistaking it for black walnut. EW has really dramatic dark streaks in it; black walnut doesn't.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/ABLVV86zY7j-T9l1nrlTmo1WtWZQXOhMccJBGB69qrRHvmvT75oMavkQlsHlYW UHJYO_YRllt_pHuF5wHx0VeKwQFuN1jdweXb3ncb0_HQuJPhnA XAonrOHnHx8C9A7dSLfHgyFvgyKdD8ehyjIBS9F1t9aEMQ=w14 60-h821-s-no?authuser=1


John