First Time Using Walnut: Wow, I've been missing out all this time!

[Luke Dupont]

I'm by no means new at woodworking, having been messing around with it for my entire life, and doing so more seriously for the last 8-9 years.

That said, my experience is still limited. IE, I've never made proper furniture before, and there's a lot of common woods that I haven't worked.

I've always worked a lot with softwoods, and when I use hardwoods, it's been mostly oak, or sometimes cherry or poplar. Very rarely something like hickory, mahogany, or more recently, tamo / Japanese ash.

Well, I finally just tried Walnut for the first time.

I've immediately fallen in love with this wood. Wow!

It's super easy to work for being a hardwood. I've been struggling a bit with this Japanese Ash, which is supposed to be easy to work, but man, this Walnut is a dream by comparison. It's smooth, tight grained, and reminds me a lot of poplar, just harder and darker.

And what's more, it smells wonderful!

I'm making a bow-saw with it. Will post when I'm done!

I wish I had some nice poplar for the stretcher. I think it would be a nice combo, as the woods feel similar in a way, and there'd be a nice contrast between the dark walnut and the white-ish poplar, both with similar saturation colorwise. The wood I have for the stretcher now is kind of pinkish-white in color and perhaps doesn't match all that well.

I'm always puzzled by what woods people rate as being easy to "work" or "machine" though. A lot of people complain about Red Oak, which I also find a joy to use. Ash is supposed to be really nice, and even from the source that I bought that Japanese ash, it's listed as "easy to work for its hardness..." and I find it harder to work than any oak I've used... more similar to hickory, and way harder than this walnut which many people list or describe as being more difficult to work, which I'm totally puzzled by...

Maybe it's different with machines

[Todd Trebuna]

I love Walnut. I hate Hickory and Ash. I’ve transitioned to mostly hand tool work, so grain direction means a lot to me. I spent an hour yesterday hand dimensioning some walnut for a Kumiko screen on an existing Walnut end table I made my wife. Watching the chocolate curls come off was the most satisfying part of my day. Cherry is. Dry pleasant as well. I’ve used Red Oak quite a bit, but not since most of my work has gone more traditional, I remember it being very hard.lol. I think I would be doing a lot of sharpening, if I were to use it these days.

[Charles Guest]

It's nice not to have to fight the wood. Imagine what working a steady diet of swietenia would have been like. If the 18th century fine furnituremakers had to use the stuff we use today, they'd probably go into a different profession. Imagine even secondary woods with growth rings almost too tight to count, lumber from virgin forests now long gone.

[Tom Bender]

A hundred years ago there might have been better wood available because so much was used for heating and cooking. The smaller amount needed for furniture could have been selected from the larger flow. Sixty years ago my father's second job was cutting firewood from the 60 acre woodlot. We could have selected beautiful hardwood for furniture if we had been woodworkers then.

[Joe A Faulkner]

I don’t know if hard maple is any easier for you to source than poplar. I personally love contrasting it with Walnut.

[Prashun Patel]

By easy to "work" or "machine", I refer to a couple things:

Does it easily tear out when planed?
Is it easy to chop and pare mortises? Does it compress when fitting, or does it splinter and chip out?
When you take power tools to it, does it burn easily? Does it gum up blades? Is the dust irritating?

A lot of people (me included) like cherry and walnut because they are favorable in the above regards.

Now wait until you get into green woodworking. All the bugs that people typically don't like about red oak become features when you have to rive it.

[Matthew Hills]

Is your walnut air-dried or kiln-dried?
The folks really in love with walnut swoon over the undertones in the air-dried wood; there are some crazy dye schedules to help bring kiln-dried to life.

Matt

[John Keeton]

Luke, it sounds like you can source most US domestic hardwood there. I am surprised, but happy for you. Add me to the “love walnut” group. And, the good Lord created hard maple to be used with walnut - especially curly maple!!

[Tom Bender]

Easy to finish is high on my list. Maple and Cherry blotch, Walnut fades. Oak and Ash suck stain into the grain. Lots to consider but Walnut is manageable.

[Bill White]

Glad ya joined the ranks of walnut workers. One of my favs too.

[glenn bradley]

I was an early subscriber to the "If it's worth making, it's worth making out of walnut" club. Welcome aboard.