Walnut Lumber

[Chris Payne]

I am in the process of milling up a bunch of walnut for a customer, he is building some wainscotting. The problem I seem to be having is I ordered a few pieces 14' long and it came in and must have been 90% sap wood so I had a few pieces left from another job but a little different color. How do you deal with all these diffrent shades of color?

[Paul Haus]

I am in the process of milling up a bunch of walnut for a customer, he is building some wainscotting. The problem I seem to be having is I ordered a few pieces 14' long and it came in and must have been 90% sap wood so I had a few pieces left from another job but a little different color. How do you deal with all these diffrent shades of color?
I've never had to deal with that long a pieces, but I've used walnut gel stain and dye to even out the color. Just a suggestion.

[Mel Fulks]

I think in walnut “ sapwood is no defect” , even though most don’t like it ! But, Rules are Rules. Sometimes you can buy “steamed
walnut” . Usually uniformly….ugly. You might find a shop with lots of accumulated short pieces ,and buy them all.

[roger wiegand]

It's all going to change, perhaps dramatically, with ongoing exposure to light and air. Short of having all the boards from the same tree (and perhaps not even then), there's going to be unevenness among boards unless you dye them to a uniform shade. If you use a transtint type dye you can also color the sapwood to match and eliminate that part of the problem.

[Jim Becker]

Walnut trees rarely grow straight so a 14' walnut board is at "yuge" risk for having sap and other defects. And as has been noted, Walnut is graded differently because of the yield challenges. Relative to coloration, walnut that is air dried or kiln dried without steaming tends to have a variety of coloration differences while walnut that's kiln dried and steamed tends to be the same "ruddy" brown color. The latter is done to increase the yield of "visually similar" boards. And as Roger mentions, time and exposure is going to alter things, too...walnut tends to get lighter over time, unlike cherry which tends to get darker.

[Phillip Mitchell]

You can stain it all some version of “Walnut” stain or you can talk to your client about the natural variation endemic to Walnut and try and find a way to tastefully embrace the sap and/or use it on the undersides, insides, less visible areas.

I recently completed a custom wine room that was all local, air dried, unsteamed Walnut. I was fortune enough to purchase an entire tree (already sawn and dried) for the project and had ~500 bd ft of “matching” Walnut to select from. Even then I was finding creative and tasteful ways to deal with sap and attempting to color match. I went for grain matching when I could and chose to use *some* sap along the little edges as a feature and explained to the client that this is how Walnut is and it’s beautiful.

It can be challenging and I have been disappointed more than a few times with commercially sourced Walnut in terms of way too much sap, both lumber and veneered plywood.

[George Yetka]

Different shades may not be a, to quote a quote, "yuge" deal if there is an alternating pattern

[Prashun Patel]

Wainscoting? Can you share the design?

[Jim Dwight]

I prefer not to stain wood. I've been mostly working with cherry and I will do things like minimize sapwood in the visible part of the project and look for boards with similar color to be glued together. I live with the variation I cannot sort out this way. Even the same board will have variation. I have a couple walnut projects in the house that I keep out of direct sunlight. They haven't bleached out too bad. But wainscotting will almost certainly see sunlight and therefore will begin to lighten. To address this as well as provide more uniform color I would stain it. I used some stain by Varathane recently and was impressed. Much more uniform results than I have gotten from Minwax products (I was staining the softwood base of a table Walnut). A good stain might even darken up sapwood enough. I would try it on a scrap.

I think a reason we don't often see a lot of good walnut lumber is the trunk of the tree if often sold for veneer. Walnut veneer plywood is reportedly in demand and goes for a good price. A lot of walnut boards may be cut up limbs. Not really desirable material. Even less desirable is kiln dried walnut that has been steamed to try and darken the sapwood. Ends up more grey than brown to my eye.

[Jonathan Jung]

Easy solutions include asking the customer what look they prefer, and then if need be simply order more material and when it comes in, send the sap stuff back.

[Dave Sabo]

Easy solutions include asking the customer what look they prefer, and then if need be simply order more material and when it comes in, send the sap stuff back.

This is what I do too.

Well , I usually go pick out the boards I need. I’ll also cut away the lighter colored sap wood which means more material and more $$$ , but I absolutely hate walnut sapwood.

[Maurice Mcmurry]

Walnut veneer logs have a golden goose status in our area. Loess soil, steep topography, and competition from other trees makes Walnuts grow straight, tall, and get big. Jim Dwight's veneer observation describes exactly what goes on with Walnut around here.
The darkest Walnut I have come across is from Iowa in areas where the soil is also very dark. Unfortunately the sapwood is just as pale.
Here is a snip from MO-Pac. Their minimum order is way bigger than I have ever been able to pull off. The majority of their product is exported. Thus "Pacific"

Steamed, kiln-dried, furniture grade American Black Walnut lumber. Missouri is known for having more American black walnut timber than any other area in the world. Our timber is predominantly sourced in northern Missouri using responsible and sustainable harvesting practices.



Missouri, Where the Walnut trees grow straight, tall, and gigantic.

[Andrew Hughes]

I deal with walnut colors by selecting my wood myself.
I’ve seen the guys at the lumber pulling orders for delivery I can tell by their soft hands what’s happening.
When the wood is free I keep my mouth shut and thanks god.
Good Luck

[Alex Zeller]

There's an old revolutionary fort sight not too far from here that has hundreds of walnut trees that are all well over 2' in diameter, at least half are over 3'. They are tall and mostly straight as an arrow. It would be a shame to cut them as they most likely were there when it was an active fort. But at the same time I see all the potential things that could be built. The only real satisfaction i get is that I collect some nuts and plant them around my property. Sorry for going a little off topic.

[Maurice Mcmurry]

I get the best germination results from burying fresh green walnuts. I speculate that the decomposing husk preps the soil and triggers germination. Ones with black husks and ones with no husk seldom germinate at our spot. I am also getting good results from using Black Locust as nurse trees. I am a little worried about controlling the nurse trees in the long term and am starting to read up on Coppice forestry.

[Warren Lake]

old guy had walnut trees he planted when he got his shop property. In his apprenticeship he said the old guy there went in the forest and picked trees years ahead. They had a good amount of lumber stored waiting. In jobs i did with walnut I had one supplier with more and better than others and was able to pick. there was no issue with sap wood it was clean and clear and lovely. I didnt need huge volume and they had good quality. Other suppliers sapwood and some injected with a die to try and make it look brown and it was more purple. Picking is a thing that never really existed most wont tolerate it or maybe some retail suppliers do then dont have the same quality.

[John Kananis]

For kiln dried walnut (specifically), I hit it with a little amber shellac as first coat to give it a little of the life back that the steam sucked out of it.