walnut

[Jack Roest]

Tonight i went to see about buying some walnut that had been just cut off the log. there was lots of white wood alongside the brown. I made a comment about so much white and he replied it will turn brown in time. I didn't buy his answer as I'm just a rookie learning. I didn't buy the wood either. White do you pros say? Will it turn brown over time or not? TIA Jack

[lou sansone]

no way.... what is that guy thinking ? that "white" is sapwood and will never turn any other color. I hate to suggest this, but either the guy who was selling the wood knows absolutely nothing about hardwood or he is a person who somehow does not know what the word "truth" actually means.

stay away from that guy .

best wishes
Lou

[Steve Ash]

I agree with lou...and welcome to the Creek!

[Michael Ballent]

My understanding is that it will turn brown after it's been hit with some sort of steam (possibly under pressure?) and then kiln dried. I believe this is what the mills do to increase the yield. So basically if you had purchased the walnut from him your wood would NOT have changed color...

[entrekin farms]

The wood that is white is sap wood, it will turn darker but it will not be as dark as the hart wood. If you use the sap wood it will make a good looking project you might want to sill all sides to keep it from warping (the sap wood will warp worse than hart wood will sealing it will keep it as bad.

[Mark Rios]

Hello and welcome to the creek Jack.

These guys here know alot more than I do about this stuff but I remember reading (you folks correct me where needed please) that the people who process wood (dry it and mill it) can do some tricks in the kiln to help darken the sapwood somewhat to try to make more usable board feet out of the log. I believe the book was "Understanding Wood". IIRC it was by the use of some chemical, either liquid or gas, inside the kiln while drying. This however would not be a natural occurance, of course.


Sorry I'm a little fuzzy on the info. Someone will clarify I'm sure. Regardless though, if the wood is ready for use then, as has been stated, the sapwood is there to stay.

[Russ Filtz]

Doesn't help with the heart vs sap issue, but one thing I remember from David Marks' teacher special was that walnut will actually LIGHTEN over time (we're talking decades here I think). Whereas cherry will continue to darken over time.

[Mac McAtee]

Walnut is steamed by large processors to darken the sap wood.

Air dried walnut will have purple hues to the colors of the wood and the sap wood will be yellow/white. When it is steamed, the sap wood gets darker, likely by the heavy dye in the wood migrating into the lighter colored wood. However when it it steamed you also loose the purple hues that are in the non steamed wood. But you will also find those colors fade over time.

You can look at this two ways. One is that it provides more of a valuable wood to wood workers, and more wood usually means lower costs. Two, it allows the processors to sell more board feet of a valuable wood, instead of cutting all that sap wood off and using it to fire the boilers that run the kilns.

It is not out of the ordinary to use walnut with sap wood to build something and in the finishing process you darken the sap wood to match the heart wood. The working properties of the two types of wood is the same, takes finish the same, grain patterns the same. If that wood was at a good price I would jump on it and then learn how to tint the sap wood to match the heart. VanDyke brown dye is made from walnut hulls, I believe, and it makes a great walnut sap wood dye. It is color fast, it dulutes with water and you can, with a little thought, make the sap wood vanish.

[Steve Cox]

My understanding is that with steaming the heartwood will lighten some and the sapwood will darken to a somewhat uniform brown color. Most of the walnut we see in furniture and in a lumberyard is treated this way. Unsteamed heartwood has a greater variety of brown and purple highlights and is a more beautiful wood but the yield from the log is a lot less and the highlights will fade over time. I would think that the white sapwood will darken over time, most very light woods will, but I don't think it will ever get as dark as the heartwood. This doesn't mean the wood is junk, it just needs to be used differently.

[Steve Clardy]

I have air dried walnut in my lumber racks that I milled myself over 15 years ago, and the sap wood is still white.

[Jim Becker]

Listen to what Steve said...walnut sapwood does not darken with time...AND...the heartwood will get lighter with exposure to UV and oxidation. Much of the kiln-dried walnut is processed with steaming to darken the sapwood. But this process also makes everything the same "muddy brown" color. Air-dried walnut is much more colorful and interesting. If you don't like the sapwood, cut it off. Or buy kiln-dried walnut for maximum yield.

Note that walnut is actually graded differently than other species because of the sapwood issue as well as the difficulty in getting longer straight stock.

BTW, welcome to the 'Creek!

[Ken Salisbury]

If you believe this guy and buy it, he is selling sap wood to a sap :) :D .

[Steve Clardy]

If you believe this guy and buy it, he is selling sap wood to a sap :) :D .


:eek: :eek: :o

[Mike Parzych]

I've made tables from air-dried walnut slabs, and left a little sapwood on the edges. Even with just a poly finish it will turn somewhat more brown. But it is much softer than the heartwood.

Walnut and cherry are two species that show the greatest the greatest difference bewteen air and kiln drying. At least in my opinion, they should be air dried. Lots more color and tone variations.

[Charlie Plesums]

I agree with most of the posts about the color changing over time (but a small amount... not like cherry), and the untreated sap wood being lighter and the heart wood being darker "forever."

The comments about steaming are true, also, but what remained unsaid is that the steaming must occur with green lumber at the beginning of the kiln drying process... it is not something that you can do later. You cannot take a dry walnut board and steam the sapwood to make it brown.

[ken gibbs]

I am using air dried walnut slabs that contain sapwood. I always use a commercial walnut stain on the whole project including the dark heartwood because the heartwood will bleach out if the piece sits in direct sunlight over a number of years. I recently finished a computer desk I designed myself using 3/4" oak plywood for the casework, walnut strips to edge-band the visable edges on the front surfaces, and a combination of sugar maple and walnut for the top. I machined sugar maple for the drawer fronts. I used a good dark walnut stain to treat all surfaces before using multiple thinned coats of eurathane. The dark walnut stain blends the colors of the sugar maple, oak casework, and the sugar maple/walnut top to a beautiful grain pattern. I like the end results and grain patterns after building up multiple coats of eurathane.

[Frank Drew]

I agree with Mike that the sapwood isn't as hard as the heartwood; I wouldn't want to try to dye match the two so prefer simply cutting the sapwood off. Consider it a cost of doing business with walnut, and if the boards are wide enough there won't be all that much loss.

To me, one problem with staining or dyeing wood for furniture is that you lock in that (artificial) color forever; I finally completely stopped dyeing cherry since it never looked as good as naturally aged cherry, and I pretty much never dyed walnut, which turns a beautiful, more copper-y brown/gold color after some years under a clear finish.

[lowell holmes]

I agree. Van Dyke Brown is made from walnut husks. Liberon is one supplier of it.

[Chris Ricker]

There is an excellent article on staining the sap wood in walnut to match the heart wood in this months Fine Woodworking magazine. It's well worth the read in this case.
The Sap wood will not turn to match the heartwood over time.
The wood you are buying is also green, you're gonna wait a long time before you can use it,:( so the price should be adjusted to fit the product.

Best of luck and welcome to the 'creek, you'll enjoy it.:)

[Peter Quinn]

I am in agreement that air dried walnut sap wood will not darken significantly over time and will never match the heart wood. When I don't want the sap edge I prefer to cut it off rather than go down the road of dye alchemy to match. Just not my forte or preference. The sap is not as stable as the heart wood but seems attractive to my eye in some designs. Not knowing the price or exact amount of sap present or the size of the board I would not be quick to right off this seller, but the suggestion that the boards will achieve an even color over time is ridiculous.

As to steaming, this seems to me mostly a cheap parlor trick used to fool buyers, stabilize sap wood and increase the mills salable board footage. Any one who has flattened a steamed KD walnut board knows that the color the sap achieves is only skin deep. One or two passes over a jointer or through a planer and you are back to white!