Fun with Black Walnut, great figure

[Bmac]

Dropped this walnut last week and sealed the ends with anchorseal. Got a chance today to open up the butt log and a wild second log the was s-shaped. The s-shaped section was about 3-4' off the ground. Because of the shape of the one log I cut both about 40" long. Then I cut them into 10/4 slabs.
I don't know how the wild shaped log will dry, I'm sure there is tension in that one. Tree was straight besides that small section, wish I took a photo before dropping the tree.
As you can see, a lot of white sap wood, this was a letdown but the figure I found was not a letdown. Always fun to see what is hiding in a log!

First cut


Second cut

Butt log

Black walnut is my favorite to mill.

 

[BobL]

Nice!

Always fun to see what is hiding in a log!

It's like Xmas as a kid.

 

[Brian72]

That's some nice stuff. I like the contrast between the light and dark. We built my son's kitchen table mixing it up. Came out pretty neat.

Sent from my E6782 using Tapatalk

 

[buzz sawyer]

I've had walnut dried in a woodmizer kiln and most of the white sapwood turned dark as the heart. That's some really nice color - hope it works out for you.

 

[frankh]

I've been told that they steam walnut to darken the sap wood. At my local mill they started adding steam at some point during kiln drying to darken the sap wood. The whole board comes out dark as the heart.

 

[burtle]

Looks sooo nice!! Black Walnut is my favorite as well. Red oak is second

 

[BigOakAdot]

I know a fine furniture maker and he does not like that they steam
Walnut. Seems to think it loses some of its rich color and I think he's right. Nothing beats air dried walnut.

I'm personally a fan of the sap wood. Think it give the slab some nice contrast. Beautiful stuff.

 

[frankh]

I like the contrast also, but it depends on what I'm making. Right now I have a piece of walnut slabwood that a person asked me to sand down and put a finish on. He plans to use it as a mounting for the giant fish that he plans on catching. I choose to finish with spar varnish, as to impart a bit of an amber tone to the sapwood. I'll post a picture when its done.

 

[Bmac]

I agree, prefer the sapwood and not into steaming. I think also like stated above, when you steam walnut you wash out the rich colors for the sake of darkening the sapwood. The air dried wood retains the most color and the sapwood. When building with air dried walnut I sometimes cut out the sapwood if I don't think it goes well with the piece, but if you are judicious about keeping it and how you use it with a piece, then it can be striking.

Was just bummed with these logs because the sapwood was so wide, I wanted more heartwood with all that unique coloring.